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COnCHT DEPOSIT. 



RECOLLECTIONS 



OF 



HOMAS D. DUNC/ 



A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 



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RECOLLECTIONS -^ 

OF 

THOMAS D. DUNCAN 

A CONFEDERATE SOLDIER 



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Nashville, Tenn. 

McQUlDDY PRINTING COMPANY 

1922 






Copyrighted, 1922 
By Thomas D. Duncan 



©C1A595339 



JAN 12 192 



^y> I 



FOREWORD 



^^HIS unpretentious work is not the 
^^, product of a literary ambition. 
Though my story deals with events 
that will live forever in the records of our 
country, I have not sought to give it the 
wings of poetic fancy whereby it may fly 
into the libraries of the earth. 

Within the happy family circle, from 
which my children are now gone, these oft- 
recounted recollections became a part of 
their education. I permitted them to turn 
the pages of my memory, as the leaves of a 
book, that they might learn the vanished 
glory of the old South — the loving loyalty 
and the sad travail of her people. And I 
trust that they learned also that our unfor- 
tunate Civil War — now, thank God, nearly 
sixty years behind us — was a clash of honest 
principles. 

That there were wild-eyed agitators and 
extremists on both sides, and that each had 
its scalawags and low-flung ruffians, there 
can be no doubt (and some of these — alas ! — 

3 



Foreword 



still live) ; but the masses of the soldiers of 
both armies, who bore the brunt of battle 
and suffered the privations of those sorrow- 
ful years, were patriots ; and he who speaks 
or writes to the contrary is an enemy to our 
reunited country and an element of weak- 
ness and danger in the strength of the na- 
tion. 

My two beloved daughters have prevailed 
upon me to record my experiences of four 
years as a Confederate soldier, in the form of 
a brief printed memoir ; and so, impelled by 
my regard for their wishes, I enter the work 
for them and for their descendants, without 
any thought of placing a literary commodity 
upon the counters of the country; and yet I 
must so write that, wherever this volume 
may chance to fall into the hands of a stran- 
ger, he may find in it that one essential to 
such a story as this is — Truth, 

Thomas D. Duncan. 



DEDICATION 




HIS brief reminiscent story is affec- 
tionately dedicated to my two grand- 
sons, Shelby Curlee, Jr., and William 
Peyton Dobbins, Jr., in the hope that it may 
help to teach them two great truths — that 
the old South that was and is no more, and 
the gray armies that fought for its glory, 
its principles, and its institutions, are enti- 
tled to their devotion and respect forever; 
and that the nation by that strife once sev- 
ered, now reunited and in peace, is insep- 
arable and eternal — the guardian of the 
highest ideals of mankind, the pioneer of 
liberty and of world democracy. 

Thomas D. Duncan. 



CONTENTS 



Chapter I 
The Tocsin of War 9 

Chapter II 
Mobilization 21 

Chapter III 
Henry and Donelson 24 

Chapter IV 
Corinth Again the Center 32 

Chapter V 
Strange Outcome of a False Alarm 39 

Chapter VI 
Shiloh 45 

Chapter VII 
Corinth After Shiloh 67 

Chapter VIII 
Battle of Rienzi 79 

Chapter IX 
Murfreesboro and Kentucky Campaign 83 

Chapter X 
The Battle of Corinth 88 

Chapter XI 
West Tennessee 104 

Chapter XII 
Middle Tennessee 1.--- 109 

Chapter XIII 
Pursuit of the Streight Raiders 112 

Chapter XIV 
Chickamauga 119 

7 



Contents 

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Chapter XV 
West Tennessee 121 

Chapter XVI 
Gen. "Sooey" Smith 127 

Chapter XVII 
Fort Pillow 132 

Chapter XVIII 
A Personal Sorrow 136 

Chapter XIX 
Battle of Brice's Cross-Roads 139 

Chapter XX 
Harrisburg and Tupelo, Miss 152 

Chapter XXI 
Raid Into Memphis 157 

Chapter XXII 
Raid Into North Alabama and Middle Tennessee 162 

Chapter XXIII 
Sulphur Trestle, Ala. 167 

Chapter XXIV 
Fourth Invasion of West Tennessee 175 

Chapter XXV 
The Beginning of Dark Days 179 

Chapter XXVI 
The Last Flickering of the Great Flame 186 

Chapter XXVII 
Reconstruction 199 

Chapter XXVIII 
Americanism Triumphant 207 

8 



CHAPTER I 



THE TOCSIN OF WAR 



N yielding to the request which has 

brought forth this effort, I shall not 

assume the role of the historian nor 

set myself up as a critic of any command or 

commander. 

Being in my seventy-sixth year, in the 
calming twilight of life's evening, I feel that 
I am capable of recording, without preju- 
dice or passion, my impressions of that most 
heated era of our country, whose momen- 
tous events — sad, tragic, glorious — repre- 
sent the summit of dramatic interest in all 
my years. 

As it is impossible for any two persons to 
see the same things exactly alike, it is but 
natural to suppose that I shall present facts 
at variance with the views of some others; 
but as my purpose is not that of the contro- 
versialist, I shall have no quarrel with any 
man's views, but to all who may be inter- 
ested in this narrative I would say that the 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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scenes herein reviewed came within the 
vision of my eyes, and my highest ambition 
is to give a truthful reflection from my 
viewpoint. 

I enlisted in the Confederate army, at a 
very tender age, in April, 1861. My first 
enrollment was in an infantry company 
known as the ''Corinth Rifles,'' then being 
formed and drilled at Corinth, Miss., under 
the leadership of Judge W. H. Kilpatrick, 
a worthy and cultured gentleman and a 
scion of a distinguished Southern family. 
He was elected captain of the company. 
The organization was among the first of the 
Mississippi soldiery and one of the best that 
enlisted in the cause of the South. But, on 
account of my youth and rather fragile 
body, my father objected to my going out 
with the infantry, and urged me to secure a 
transfer to a cavalry company that had been 
organized at Corinth under the guidance 
of another good Mississippian, the noble- 
hearted and gallant gentleman, William M. 
Inge, my older brother being first lieutenant 
in the company. 

My father gave me a good horse, and I 

10 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



was transferred accordingly. Naturally, 
the first call that came for troops was for 
infantry and artillery; and the ^^Corinth 
Rifles" went to Pensacola, Fla. This was 
trying indeed to the pride and metal of the 
young patriots left behind — to see our kin 
and friends leave for the war. This inner 
pressure became so strong that a large num- 
ber of the membership of our cavalry com- 
pany left our ranks and went with the in- 
fantry to Pensacola. 

I would have gone, but as I was under the 
lawful age for enlistment and still subject 
to parental rule, my father objected ; and as 
the patriotic spirit in me was welling up so 
strong as to throw out a defy, my father 
told me that if I did not obey him I should 
not go to war at all. Such things were dif- 
ferent in those days from what they are to- 
day. The average boy, however high-spir- 
ited, was careful to heed a father's com- 
mand. Nevertheless, in his kindly solici- 
tude, fearing that I might be persuaded by 
my comrades to run away, my father ear- 
nestly counseled me to remain with the cav- 
alry company, with the understanding that 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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he would offer no objection to my entering 
the service on account of my age. This set- 
tled my obedience to his will, and I was glad 
to be permitted to be a cavalry soldier. 

None knew, except those who lived dur- 
ing those stirring times, the atmosphere of 
excitement that pervaded this Southern 
country. Our captain had telegraphed to 
every possible point to have our company 
ordered into active service ; but no call came, 
and after the opening gun on Fort Sumter, 
nothing could longer restrain him, and he 
left us and went as adjutant, with a Missis- 
sippi infantry regiment, to Virginia. This 
loss came near to disrupting our company, 
and the ranks were depleted to twenty 
troopers. It was discouraging indeed to 
those who remained. 

Here I wish to tell you what was then go- 
ing on in Corinth and what contributed to 
holding the nucleus of our company to- 
gether. 

A unit of the first army of Virginia was 
assembling and organizing at this place, em- 
bracing the flower and chivalry of the South 
— men of culture, wealth, and position 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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mingling with the honest and fearless yeo- 
manry of hills and mountains and valleys; 
and in most cases it was the first time they 
had ever spent a night or satisfied a hunger 
beyond the parental roof or a comforta- 
ble home. Indeed, the number in that vast 
host of the first volunteers who had ever 
failed to lie down to slumber on an old- 
fashioned feather bed was small. Few were 
those who had not known the luxury of the 
carpeted room or satisfied their appetites 
from any source except that bountifully 
laden table so conspicuous in the old South- 
ern home. 

It will be remembered by Corinthians of 
that period who still live that Corinth was 
dealt a severe and hurtful blow by the sol- 
diers who composed that army. They pro- 
nounced it the most unhealthful place on 
the Western Hemisphere. Evidently they 
thought it the supreme upas of human ills, 
overlooking the fact that all was due to the 
conditions of their camps rather than to any 
natural causes from water or climate. 

From close observation of those camps I 
was led to believe that under the same con- 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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ditions the result would have been the same 
had our men been encamped around the 
peaks of Ben Vair or on the slopes of the 
Rockies. 

I saw those young, white-handed men, 
who had never been exposed to a hardship, 
attempting to cook bread and meat in a 
frying pan that scorched the outside and left 
the inside raw. Eating such food and 
drinking water from surface wells only a 
few feet deep, into which every rain washed 
the refuse of the camps, were not diarrhoea, 
typhus, and many other diseases, very nat- 
ural consequences? 

Thus did insanitation and infection be- 
come more deadly enemies than the armed 
foe, reaping an inglorious harvest of loath- 
some death among those gallant and fear- 
less boys of the South who had sought to 
stake their lives beneath a fluttering battle 
flag. 

After a time, this splendid army of the 
Confederacy was organized and equipped 
and sent to Virginia. The hurry and bustle 
of camp life were gone, the ceaseless noises 
that so long had dinned our ears had died 

14 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



into quietude, and for a period Corinthians 
were permitted to contemplate, thoughtfully 
and with misgivings, the war cloud then 
rapidly approaching. 

Meantime the remnant of our cavalry 
company accepted an invitation to join with 
a like number from North Alabama, and 
the consolidated command was ordered to 
rendezvous at Columbus, Miss., where there 
were several companies already assembled 
and forming a regiment of cavalry. We 
marched through the country, and after 
four or five days arrived at our destination 
on a bright, sunny morning. The compa- 
nies stationed there were lined up along the 
principal thoroughfares to receive us. In 
new uniforms and well mounted, these 
troops seemed the very spirit of war. They 
were equipped with new and formidable 
arms, and their horses were in trappings of 
gay ribbon. 

Ordinarily the scene would have been 
thrilling and inspiring, but the shabby ap- 
pearance of our company, travel-worn and 
but few of the men in uniforms or carrying 
weapons of any kind, presented a contrast 

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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

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that was humiliating and embarrassing. 
Our general aspect was more that of a 
bunch of immigrants than of a company of 
militant patriots. My young heart was al- 
most overcome with shame, for at this stage 
of the war I was considering the outward 
appearance rather than the inward condi- 
tion. I looked upon the great and tragic is- 
sue as depending upon tinsel trappings and 
martial splendor. But in the hard school of 
experience I was soon to learn a different 
lesson. 

At Columbus we went into camp for in- 
struction, and were taught the use of cav- 
alry arms, how to manage our horses, and 
were drilled in the tactics and movements 
of troopers in action. We were also in- 
structed in camp and guard duties and put 
through the regular service of mounting 
guard day and night. 

I had been in camp only a short while 
when my time came to go on guard duty. I 
was detailed to go out on a dark and stormy 
night. It was a bitter trial for a boy to be 
out alone in the open, in the blackness of 
such a night, and to walk up and down a de- 

16 




LiJiUT. GjiiN. Nathan Bedford Forrest 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



serted pathway and keep the vigil of the 
camp. There was no enemy near us, but 
orders were given and obedience demanded 
just the same as if a hostile army were in 
front of us. We were camped along the 
banks of the Luxapeilial, a large creek that 
flows southeast of Columbus and empties 
into the waters of the Tombigbee River a 
short distance south of the city. Etched 
upon my memory is the trying experience 
of that first night on guard duty. As I 
paced my post, the whole camp wrapped in 
slumber, I thought of home and the com- 
fortable surroundings I had exchanged for 
this situation. I did not then know much 
about the ''prodigal son,'' but I have since 
learned that I was very much in the same 
condition as he when he came to himself. 
It was not very cold, but the rain poured 
down, and there were no other sounds ex- 
cept an occasional neigh of some restless 
horse and the melancholy hooting of an owl. 
My gloomy meditations were suddenly 
interrupted by the unmistakable sounds of 
approaching footsteps. We were relieved 
every three hours; but as the relief guard 

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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

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always had from three to six men, I knew it 
could not be that. That which I heard 
seemed to be a solitary being approaching. 
The orders were that no one should be al- 
lowed to pass or come within thirty feet of 
the guard without a challenge. When chal- 
lenged, if the intruder could not give the 
password or countersign, it was the duty of 
the guard to arrest and hold him until the 
arrival of the officer with the relief guard. 

I had an uncle who served with Jackson 
in the Seminole War, and he had told me 
that the first requirement of a good soldier 
was to obey orders. So when my myste- 
rious visitor came near enough for me to see 
the outlines of a human form, I said : "Halt ! 
Who goes there?^' He answered: "A 
friend.'^ Whereupon I commanded him to 
advance ten feet and give the password — 
if more than one, then one at a time. As 
there was only one man in sight, he came 
forward until I halted him again. Then, 
upon my demand for the password, he said 
he had forgotten it, but that he was the of- 
ficer of the guard, and that there would be 
no impropriety in my permitting him to 

18 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



pass — that he had been permitted to pass 
the post just beyond me. His story was told 
with great earnestness ; but I was somewhat 
out of temper, anyway, standing there in 
the rain. So I brought my gun to ^^ready" 
and told him that he must ''mark time;" 
that he had failed to meet the demands ac- 
cording to orders given me, and that if he 
attempted to either advance or retire he 
must take the consequences. Standing only 
a few feet from an inexperienced boy, ex- 
cited and frightened, with a cocked gun lev- 
eled on him, he realized his danger and 
quickly called to the relief guard, waiting 
in the darkness just back of him, to see if 
he could pass me, and they came forward in 
proper order and gave the password. 

He proved to be a special officer sent out 
to test the guards on duty. He said to me : 
'Toung man, you have acquitted yourself 
with great honor in this matter. I have tra- 
versed the entire camp to-night, and you are 
the only sentry who has obeyed his instruc- 
tions. I have succeeded in deceiving and 
passing every man on guard except you. In 
one instance I secured possession of the sen- 

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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

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tineFs gun; and now I have all of these men 
here under arrest, and they will have to 
serve a term in the guardhouse for their 
neglect of duty. Were we in the presence of 
the enemy, the penalty for this violation of 
orders would be death/' 

This little episode in my first military 
experience made me the hero of the camp 
for a time, and I was commended in guard 
orders in the highest terms as a boy of fif- 
teen years exhibiting the soldierly qualities 
of a veteran. Naturally, my father was 
very proud of this act and wrote me a letter 
abounding in praise. 

Thus ends the first chapter of my war 
story. Could my military experience have 
closed with that preparatory service, I 
should have been saved the pangs of much 
sorrow and from out my life would have 
been taken the wasting trials and hardships 
endured for four long and anxious years. 
But — alas' — had I been spared the danger 
and the suffering, I could never have known 
the happy consciousness of duty performed 
under the hammer of danger nor tasted the 
sweet fruit of satisfaction that grows from 
the bitter flower of sacrifice. 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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CHAPTER II 



MOBILIZATION 




MID the ever-growing dangers of that 
anxious year, our little command 
was ordered to Corinth, where the 
mobilization of the Western army had be- 
gun. To me this was a most welcome move, 
but for the majority of the boys, who were 
born and reared in that immediate section, 
it meant the first breaking of home ties — 
sad adieus and, to many, the last farewell. 
Aside from the partings of kindred, lov- 
ers, and friends, there was a poignant sor- 
row over leaving Columbus, for its air of 
natural and restful beauty had cast a be- 
witching charm. Save one, it was the old- 
est town of Mississippi; and the history of 
its pioneers, the dim legends of its loves, ro- 
mances, and tragedies, like its white-col- 
umned mansions, were foundationed in the 
long ago. The hearts of its people, ripe in 
sentiment and aesthetic culture, had been 

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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

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given in a flood of affectionate gratitude to 
the young soldiers, training within its gates, 
to defend the institutions, ideals, and tradi- 
tions of the South. 

Such a town could not but be the nursery 
of beauty and the home of hospitality, the 
two most persuasive influences that touch 
the heart of youth. 

Soon after our arrival at Corinth our 
company was detached from the regiment 
for special or scout duty. Troops were then 
being sent to Island No. 10, Columbus 
(Ky.), Fort Henry, and Fort Donelson, 
Corinth being a distributing point. 

The Confederacy was then establishing a 
line of defense from Columbus, Ky., on the 
Mississippi River, to Bowling Green, and on 
to Cumberland Gap, in Eastern Tennessee; 
and in the early autumn of 1861 there was 
much activity along this rather widely 
spaced line. There had been a slight clash 
at Columbus, Ky., and the battle of Fishing 
Creek, on the other end of the line, the most 
serious consequence of which was the death 
of the brilliant and promising General Zolli- 
coffer. 

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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

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The first Bull Run, back in July, had 
fanned away the last hope of compromise, 
and both North and South were athrob with 
the roll of mustering drums. 



6 



C!:5 



23 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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CHAPTER III 



HENRY AND DONELSON 




UR company left Corinth in Septem- 
'^ ber and went through North Ala- 
bama and Middle Tennessee, and I 
joined Forrest and arrived in the vicinity of 
Nashville in November. After scouting 
and guarding some convoys down the Cum- 
berland River, we were ordered to support 
the defenses of Forts Henry and Donelson, 
on the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers, 
respectively, just ten miles apart, where 
the two rivers parallel each other in their 
northward courses across Tennessee. 

I was now to realize, in my first actual 
experience, the fullness of the horrors that 
wait upon the tinsel glory of that long- 
worshiped art of human destruction which 
men call "war.'^ 

General Forrest had secured, early in the 
war, several hundred old-style cap-and-ball 
navy pistols, most valuable weapons for cav- 
alry. 

24 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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On December 28, 1861, at Sacramento, 
Ky., we had our first fight with a troop of 
Union cavalry, about equal in number of 
men to ours. After a sharp engagement, we 
succeeded in putting the enemy to flight. 
The Union troopers lost Captain Bacon, 
killed, and several men killed and wounded, 
and we lost two men, killed, and several 
wounded. 

After this skirmish, we retired within the 
lines at Fort Donelson. 

On February 6, 1862, General Grant, as- 
sisted by the gunboat fleet under Commo- 
dore Foote, vigorously attacked and cap- 
tured Fort Henry, defended by Gen. Lloyd 
Tilghman. 

With the opening of the bombardment. 
General Grant hurriedly threw his army 
across the road leading from Fort Henry to 
Fort Donelson to cut off the possible retreat 
of Tilghman's command of about three 
thousand men; but Tilghman, foreseeing 
the almost certainty of defeat, had kept only 
enough men to man and handle the guns of 
the fort and marched his troops in double- 

25 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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quick on toward Donelson, just escaping the 
Union line by a few hundred yards. 

This was the first experience under fire 
of nearly all the soldiers of both sides, and 
the all-absorbing topic around the camp 
fires was the exaggerated danger of the 
gunboats, then a new instrument of war. 
It was believed by many that they were both 
indestructible and irresistible; that, once 
within range of the enemy, he had no chance 
of escape; and the soldiers who had been 
under their fire at Fort Henry gave descrip- 
tions of their terror and havoc which did not 
tend to allay the fears of the uninitiated. 
We were told that our cannon balls would 
fall harmless from their steel armor, and 
that the gunners of these boats were so pro- 
tected that they could take deliberate aim 
and deliver their shots into our port holes. 
In fact, these tales were so enlarged upon 
that many of our men were paralyzed with 
fear, and became so timid that they did not 
want to fight when the gunboat was a fac- 
tor. I shall always believe that this senti- 
ment played a large part in the surrender 
of Fort Donelson, although when the actual 

26 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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test came at Donelson the Confederate shore 
batteries outfought the gunboats and gave 
them a very decisive drubbing; but the one 
fatal defect in the mechanism of the old- 
style batteries, which provided no way of 
depressing the guns to a sufficient angle to 
bring them in line with a near and lower 
target, placed our gunners at a great disad- 
vantage here. 

I am giving rather liberal space to my 
comment on this battle, because it was the 
greatest battle of the war up to that time 
and because of the supreme confidence of 
the people, the army and the commanders, 
in the impregnability of this fort and their 
consequent disappointment when it fell. 

The Confederates successfully repulsed 
the combined attack of General Grant and 
Commodore Foote on the first day. 

On February 15 another attack was 
made; and General Forrest, with all the 
cavalry, and General Pillow, with the in- 
fantry and artillery, repelled the land at- 
tack, and pushed back the Union Army on 
the right until this wing was doubled on its 
center ; and if the movement had been given 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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support from the other parts of the Confed- 
erate lines, there might have been a differ- 
ent story to tell of Fort Donelson. But it 
may be that all the 'Ifs'' that have changed 
the fate of the world belong to the God of 
battles, who alone knows where to set them 
in the little affairs of men that they may 
serve the ultimate good of all his people. 

In this engagement Gen. N. B. Forrest 
displayed, for the first time, that tremen- 
dous energy and marvelous generalship 
which were so prominently and successfully 
employed in all his future career. 

This fight was the most appalling sight I 
had ever witnessed. I was a mere boy en- 
gaged in a struggle wherein men were seek- 
ing to destroy each other, and yet I dare say 
that the common soldiers of those two mili- 
tant hosts had no real and clear conception 
of the cause of their deadly antagonism. 

May the politician and the agitator pon- 
der well this terrible fact and beware of the 
keen word that may open the veins of a na- 
tion! 

The sky of my memory must forever hold 
the shriek of those shells; nor can I forget 

28 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



the muffled crash of grapeshot and minnie 
balls as they literally tore the ranks of the 
combatants. 

At one point in our advance we were or- 
dered to charge a battery of field guns. In 
this charge I lost control of my horse, and 
he carried me beyond the battery into the 
infantry support of the enemy. I made a 
circuit, and on my return a Federal soldier 
fired at me when I was not more than 
twenty paces from him. I was mounted on 
a spirited animal, and it was running and 
jumping so unevenly that I happily made a 
very evasive target, and the soldier missed 
his aim, just grazing my right shoulder, tak- 
ing the width of the ball out of my coat and 
cutting a crease in the flesh. The shot was 
fired as I was approaching the man ; and as 
I passed within a few feet of him, I shot at 
him twice with my six-shooter, but could not 
tell whether or not my shots struck him. I 
was a good marksman, and under ordinary 
circumstances I would have been sure of my 
aim; but it behooves me to tell you that I 
was far more bent on getting out of this 

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dangerous situation than on killing an en- 
emy. 

I had many narrow escapes that day, but 
this was my closest ''call" as a soldier of the 
C. S. A. 

On our part of the field our forces had 
been successful, but the remainder of our 
lines had been defeated, and the fort had 
been so battered that those in command — 
Generals Floyd, Buckner, and Pillow— de- 
cided to surrender on the following morn- 
ing. 

General Forrest was advised of the plan, 
and he informed the commanders that he 
did not become a soldier to surrender and 
that he was going out that night and take 
as many of his men as would follow him. 
The backwater was from two to six feet 
deep, but this had no terror for our leader. 
We secured the service of a native to guide 
us, and by going in close to the Union line 
we found shallow water and no obstruction, 
and so we escaped to safety. The ground 
was covered with snow and the water was 
very cold. 

Forrest led his troops to safety on this oc- 

30 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

illllllllllllllllllllillllllllililllililllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllliH 

casion under conditions which would have 
broken the will of any ordinary man, as he 
was to do many times in the years that fol- 
lowed. 



31 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



CHAPTER IV 



CORINTH AGAIN THE CENTER 




ITH the fall of Donelson, the Confed- 
erate line was broken at the center ; 
and Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston, 
then in command of all the Confederate 
forces of Tennessee and Kentucky, evacu- 
ated Columbus and Bowling Green and 
withdrew his army to the Memphis and 
Charleston Railroad, establishing a new line 
of defense, with Tennessee and Kentucky, 
thus early in the struggle, practically in the 
hands of the enemy. 

Through Tennessee, North Alabama, and 
North Mississippi I returned to Corinth, 
which place had become the headquarters of 
General Johnston. 

The capture of Henry and Donelson con- 
stituted a severe blow to the Confederacy. 
A vast, rich territory and a splendid army 
had been lost, and the Tennessee and Cum- 
berland Rivers opened to the Union forces. 

32 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

To hold the line of the Southwestern de- 
fense, already pushed back to the very mar- 
gin of the great Mississippi Valley, and to 
protect the railroad of communication and 
transportation between the East and the 
West (the Memphis and Charleston), Gen- 
eral Johnston began mobilization at Cor- 
inth, with the purpose not only to defend, 
but to counter attack as soon as possible. 
It developed early in March that the Union 
forces were seeking an outlet up the Tennes- 
see to some point from which the new Con- 
federate line could be attacked. 

With a few companies I was sent to East- 
port, then the head of navigation on the Ten- 
nessee River, to scout and watch for the ex- 
pected landing of the Union army. Soon 
came the gunboats Lexington and Tyler, 
invested with a silent terror, wrought by 
superstitious fear, more awful than their 
guns. It was only with a closer knowl- 
edge that this unwarranted fear vanished. 
Later in the war we captured one of these 
monsters at this point with loaded battery, 
and still later Forrest captured three gun- 
boats and ran a whole flotilla of this class off 

33 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

the river with Morton's and Rice's field bat- 
teries. 

At this time there lived at Eastport a 
man named Hill who had been a steam- 
boat pilot, and he had a son just about my 
age ; so by arrangement I dressed in one of 
the suits of his son and went with Mr. Hill 
to the landing. As we were the only persons 
present, three officers came ashore and 
asked Hill many questions about the South- 
ern soldiers. They did not notice me on ac- 
count of my age and unsophisticated dress ; 
but I was using my eyes for all they were 
worth, and afterwards, with Mr. Hill's as- 
sistance, I was able to give a fairly good de- 
scription of the floating terrors. They were 
old wooden transports armored with rail- 
road irons and with small iron above the 
water line and pilot house. 

After this episode, the force at luka sent 
a battery of field pieces to Chickasaw Bluff, 
just above Eastport, from which position 
they had a clear view down the river to 
the first bend, about four miles. 

34 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin 

The commander made up a detail from 
our company to keep watch at Eastport for 
the next appearance of the gunboats. On 
the river bank was an old elevator topped 
with a tower by which grain and produce 
could me loaded and unloaded into steam- 
boats. We used this old building as a watch 
tower at night, and during the day we were 
stationed on the high bluff, two of us watch- 
ing together. One night my companion and 
I had been discussing the probability of 
being able to discern the approach of a gun- 
boat, as they concealed all lights and muffled 
the exhaust of their engines. In the dark- 
ness and the silence our conversation turned 
to idle fancies. To the soldier actually en- 
gaged in war death seems ever near, and, 
with the mind so attuned, it is but a step 
from the natural to the supernatural. My 
companion had asked me if I believed in 
ghosts, or in the appearance on earth of the 
spirits of the dead. I told him that from 
the old slaves of my father I had imbibed the 
superstitious fear of ghosts, or, as they 
called them, ^'hants;'' but that as I had 

35 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

JllillllllllilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllllH 

grown older, my mind had been disabused 
of the hair-raising philosophy of headless 
men and white-sheeted women. ''Then/' 
said he, ''I will tell you a story of this place/' 
As a solemn and somewhat uncanny pre- 
lude to his story, he slowly repeated the 
couplet, 

"Into the sea, out of the sea, 
All that is mine comes back to me;" 

and continued: ''In the year 1845 a steam- 
boat captain named Moore was running on 
the Tennessee between Eastport, Miss., and 
Paducah, Ky. His wife had been lost in a 
river disaster; but he had a daughter, beau- 
tiful and accomplished, whose rearing had 
been the pressing care of his lonely life. 
After her school days, the young lady spent 
much of her time on her father's boat and 
with friends here at Eastport. The pride 
of her father's heart and with many admir- 
ers, she was 'the observed of all observers' 
at all the balls and other social functions so 
frequent on the boat which was the center 
of life for this lonely section. It soon de- 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

lllllllllilllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllilllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllN 

veloped, as is nearly always the case, that 
the young man who won her heart was not 
her father's choice among her many suitors. 

^When the young lovers could not recon- 
cile the father to their promised marriage, 
they stole away from the boat on a dark night 
when the river was at high stage, climbed 
to the top of this old tower, lashed them- 
selves together, and jumped into the raging 
waters ; and it is said that to this day, when 
the river runs high and the moon is gone 
and the clouds curtain the stars, the spirits 
of those long-gone lovers return to the base 
of this tower and struggle again with the en- 
gulfing waves, and wild sounds rise from 
the rushing waters as if a man had moaned 
and a woman shrieked/' 

As he finished his blood-curdling story, 
there was an unearthly scream in the loft 
above us, and we executed a retreat out of 
that old building, which for prompt action 
and swift movement would have commanded 
the admiration of Napoleon or Stonewall 
Jackson, even though our courage as sol- 
diers had gone to pieces upon the phantom 
of superstition. 

37 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

''ll'flllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllH 

We had disturbed the slumber or medita- 
tion of a screech owl, and with one shrill 
whistle he had hustled us from our post of 
duty more hastily than could have been done 
by all the "Yankee^' gunboats on the river. 



38 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 



CHAPTER V 



STRANGE OUTCOME OF A FALSE ALARM 



V 




FTER deserting the old warehouse as 
our picket post, we had to make some 
kind of ^^frame up'' to report to our 
captain of the guard. It was about one 
mile to where the reserve was encamped 
on the hill. We mounted our horses and 
went up, very much excited from the owl 
scare, and told the officer that we were sure 
that we had heard a boat approaching; and 
instantly the camp became a center of ac- 
tivity. The battery at Chickasaw Bluff was 
notified to be ready for action at daylight, 
and a runner was sent to luka to notify the 
commander that the gunboats were ap- 
proaching and with orders to be in readi- 
ness to send a sufficient force to prevent a 
landing upon call. 

As I witnessed all this commotion and 
preparation based upon our falsehood, my 
conscience smote me bitterly, and I do not 

39 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

IliillllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllN 

know what would have become of us but for 
the fact that the gunboats actually came. 
While all except the two false messengers 
waited in expectancy, soon after daylight, 
two boats came into view, approaching cau- 
tiously. When opposite the landing, they 
stopped for a little while and then turned to 
go back down the river. It was then that 
the battery at Chickasaw Bluff opened fire 
on them. Our gunners were poor marks- 
men and could not make a hit ; so, after the 
exchange of a few shots, the boats dropped 
down the river. 

Two years later Morton's battery of our 
command, from this same point literally rid- 
dled and captured a gunboat of this type. 

It was apparent that the purpose of the 
enemy was to land a force as near the rail- 
road as possible, and Eastport seemed the 
natural point, as luka, on the railroad, was 
only eight miles away; but the discovery 
that Eastport was in the hands of the Con- 
federates and the fact that the surrounding 
hills and bluffs were peculiarly adapted to 
defense probably caused the Federal com- 
mander to change his plan. 

40 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



After the gunboats had sailed away, I was 
selected, with three comrades, to follow 
down the river bank and watch for the 
chosen landing place of the Union Army. 
When crossing Yellow Creek just above 
where it flows into the river, there was a 
gunboat shelling the woods. Leaving the 
river where it makes a bend, we rode across 
the neck of land to Childer's Hill, in front 
of Hamburg. We could see the smoke of a 
steamer that seemed to be lying at the 
wharf; and as we expected troops to land 
here, we were discussing the advisability of 
going down to the village, when the boat 
fired a solid shot at us, which passed over 
our heads. We immediately whirled our 
horses into the woods, bearing down the 
river, when the second shot came and hit 
the ground we had just left. We went on 
down toward Pittsburg Landing, and the 
gunboats shelled the woods along the river 
between Hamburg and Pittsburg Landing 
during all of the afternoon. 

About dark we arrived at the home of 
Thomas Fraley, near Shiloh Church, and 
accepted his invitation to spend the night 

41 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

under his roof. He told us that he had vis- 
ited the Landing late in the afternoon, and 
that no troops were there, but that the gun- 
boats were very active between this place 
and Hamburg, where, he was sure, troops 
were being landed; that two transports of 
soldiers had passed up the river during the 
day, probably to be landed at Hamburg or 
at some place above there. We did not then 
know, what developed later, that the Fed- 
eral commander, after abandoning Eastport 
as a landing place, had selected the mouth 
of Yellow Creek, above Hamburg. But it 
was impossible to get a footing there, as the 
water was all over the landing place. So 
the transports dropped back to Pittsburg 
Landing, which place was finally selected 
from sheer necessity on account of its high 
bluff and its ridge road leading from the riv- 
er to Corinth, Miss., twenty-two miles away. 
Apprehending no danger in spending the 
night with our friend, Fraley, though very 
close to the river, we turned in for the night, 
enjoying a good supper and a comfortable 
bed. This home was a short distance west 
of Shiloh Church, on the Stantonville Road. 

42 



Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 



iiiiiiiii 

Rain was falling the next morning, and 
so we did not hurry away. Thus early in 
the war soldiers were guilty of many things 
which a year later would not have been tol- 
erated. After the sections had grappled 
each other in the deadly conflict, there was 
no more sleeping in houses within gunshot 
of the enemy without a picket or vidette. 

About eight o'clock, while we were sad- 
dling our horses, some country boys passed, 
riding mules, and told us they were going 
down to the Landing. In a few minutes we 
bade adieu to our friend, Fraley, and, after 
riding down the road a short distance, we 
turned into the woods to strike the country 
road leading back to Hamburg. When we 
crossed the Corinth and Pittsburg Landing 
Road, we discovered a regiment of cavalry 
passing in the direction of Pea Ridge, and 
we soon became aware of the presence of 
large bodies of troops being disembarked at 
Pittsburg Landing. Fully appreciating our 
danger, we avoided all roads and went to 
Corinth and apprised General Johnston of 
the landing place of the Federal Army. 

Shortly after this I saw Mr. Fraley, and 

43 



Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

lllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllH^ 

he told me how narrowly I had escaped be- 
ing captured. As we were leaving his 
house, a regiment of cavalry came up at a 
gallop, four abreast, with guns ready for 
action. We had just turned a bend in the 
road, which hid us from view. The colonel 
of the regiment asked Mr. Fraley what had 
become of the soldiers who were there a few 
minutes ago. He told them we had just left, 
and they rode rapidly down the road after 
us. So it happened that our turning into the 
woods was all that saved us. 

I have related this incident somewhat at 
length to illustrate the necessity of un- 
broken vigilance and the danger of the 
slightest carelessness in time of war. 

The Federal transports had begun disem- 
barking troops that morning, and, very nat- 
urally, they advanced along the roads 
leading away from the Landing, taking 
possession of the country for several miles 
west of the river. 

As soon as General Johnston learned of 
this latest move of the enemy he began his 
arrangements to meet it. 



44 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 



CHAPTER VI 



SHILOH 




^'HERE has been so much written about 
the battle of Shiloh that it is not in 
order for me to seek to contradict or 
confirm any of the various claims and theo- 
ries. I shall adhere to my determination to 
make this story a record of scenes and 
events actually observed. I was in the bat- 
tle of Shiloh from the opening gun to the 
close ; and while I was very young, the im- 
pressions made on my mind are vivid and 
lasting. Notwithstanding the flight of 
sixty years, I remember many circum- 
stances of that terrible conflict, as if they 
had happened yesterday. 

As soon as General Johnston assumed 
command of the new line centered at Cor- 
inth, he began mobilization on the largest 
possible scale; and on March 29, 1862, he 
issued an order consolidating the armies 
of Kentucky and Mississippi and all inde- 

45 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

'IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIillllllllllllilllllilllllllillilllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllN 

pendent commands into ''The Army op the 
Mississippi/' naming Gen. G. T. Beaure- 
gard as second in command and Gen. Brax- 
ton Bragg as chief of staff. Gen. Van Dorn, 
stationed at Little Rock, Ark., had been or- 
dered to report with his army at Corinth; 
but for some reason he did not reach there 
in time to participate in the battle of Shiloh. 

It was reported to us that, following the 
battle of Fort Donelson, General Halleck, 
the commander of the Department of the 
Mississippi, and General Grant, acting un- 
der him, were not in harmony, and that Hal- 
leck had suspended Grant and placed Gen. 
C. F. Smith in active command of the army, 
and that he had established camps at Pitts- 
burg Landing preparatory to the expected 
movement against Johnston's line. 

It came to light later that, a few days 
prior to the battle of Shiloh, General Smith, 
in stepping into a launch from a steamboat, 
had sprained his ankle and was disabled, 
which resulted in General Grant being 
again placed in command. 

It was a current report that General 
Smith, after being disabled, had gone on a 

46 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

visit to General Halleck at St. Louis, and 
that General Sherman had been left in tem- 
porary^ command of the encampment at 
Pittsburg Landing. 

When the battle opened, General Grant 
was at the W. H. Cherry residence, at Sa- 
vannah, Tenn., eight miles from the battle- 
field. 

General Johnston had been informed that 
BuelFs army was marching from Middle 
Tennessee to join Grant's army at Pitts- 
burg Landing, thus giving the Union force 
a numerical superiority of approximately 
thirty thousand men ; and as it was not pos- 
sible for Van Dorn to reach Corinth before 
the arrival of Buell, General Johnston de- 
cided to make a surprise attack on the en- 
campment at Pittsburg Landing. Hence, 
on April 1, we began preparation for a for- 
ward movement. 

I was detailed as a courier at Beauregard's 
headquarters; and as I knew the country 
around Corinth, I had been used in many 
cases in piloting the incoming troops to the 
encampment and in carrying messages be- 
tween the different commanders. In this 

47 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

illllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllillllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllH 

way I became acquainted with the contem- 
plated movement of our army. I was not 
aware of the destination, but could see the 
feverish preparation for a move of some 
kind. It was General Johnston's plan to 
have all of his troops before the Federal 
Army on the 4th of April and to fight the 
battle on the 5th; but the bad condition of 
the roads, resulting from long-continued 
rains, so delayed the progress of the troops 
that the hindmost corps did not get into po- 
sition until about dark on the evening of 
April 5. 

General Johnston had instructed his com- 
manders to guard the secret of our ap- 
proach. 

Late in the afternoon of the 5th, while 
we were waiting for the final touches of the 
attacking formation, I rode out to a high 
point in front of our center, and I could hear 
the Union troops drilling in their encamp- 
ment. The drum and fife and the com- 
mands of the officers could be plainly heard. 

It will be remembered that certain Fed- 
eral commanders always claimed that their 
troops were not surprised at Shiloh, but I 

48 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

lllllllllllllillillliiillillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllilllllilllllllllllllllllllllllilllH 

shall always believe that the Union Army 
was absolutely unaware of the presence of 
the Confederate Army. They knew that 
there was a cavalry force in their front, as 
we had had skirmishes with them, partici- 
pated in by small detachments on each side. 

As I look back over the past, I cannot 
but believe that Fate had decreed that the 
Southern Confederacy should fail. We had 
lost Forts Henry and Donelson, with more 
than fifteen thousand picked men. Now we 
were preparing for the greatest pitched bat- 
tle of the war, and apparently had all the 
advantage, and yet from an almost insig- 
nificant cause we were robbed of the fruits 
of complete victory. 

Advancing from my position on the hill, 
I rode down to the Corinth Road. Our cav- 
alry had just pushed back a squad of Fed- 
eral cavalry that had come out toward our 
line, and this troop soon returned with a 
larger body of men ; but as we were endeav- 
oring to avoid an engagement, we fell back 
a little on our reserve. This only encour- 
aged the ''Yankees,'' and in their eagerness 
to capture us they chased us through our 

49 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllillllH 

infantry line on the main road, which per- 
mitted them to pass through without firing 
on them on account of the order not to dis- 
close our presence. But this troop kept up 
the chase until they came upon one of our 
batteries in the road, and this battery fired 
on them with two guns, killing some of them 
and throwing the entire body into confu- 
sion; whereupon we turned and followed 
them back to their line, capturing several 
men and an officer. When we took them 
through our line and they saw the situation, 
the officer exclaimed: ''Mj Lord, our people 
do not suspect such a thing as this!'' 

All of this happened just at dark on the 
evening of the 5th ; and, of course, all of our 
comrades believed that the firing of the can- 
non would arouse the whole Union Army 
and reveal the presence of our force. 

The night came on, and the Confederates 
lay down in line of battle to rest and slum- 
ber, realizing the danger of the coming 
morn and the certainty that for many the 
next sunrise would be the last of earth. 

The 6th was Sunday, and the sun came up 
bright and unclouded. At daybreak I car- 

50 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



ried a message to Colonel Gilmer, Bragg's 
chief of artillery, and then rode out to the 
skirmish line. Here I saw, for the first 
time, a soldier killed. All the men of the 
skirmish line were behind trees, and were 
shooting at such an angle as to enfilade the 
enemy's position. 

The soldier whose killing I witnessed was 
a Confederate — a very young man. The 
bullet came from a point several degrees to 
the right of his front and cut his throat. 

Seeing this boy killed impressed me anew 
with the horrors of war. I thought of his 
mother, probably praying for him in her 
distant home, and yet within a few hours 
his body would be cast into an isolated and 
unmarked grave. 

My musings were suddenly interrupted 
by a soldier exclaiming, ^^Look!" and as I 
cast my eyes in the direction indicated, I 
saw a long line of bayonets rising over the 
top of a hill about six hundred yards dis- 
tant. This force was a brigade of infantry ; 
and as they reached the top of the elevation, 
our skirmish line fired on them from their 
hidden position behind trees. The enemy 

51 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



could not see them ; and as our company of 
cavalry was in plain view, they fired at us 
across the corner of the 'Traley field.'' We 
did not have a man hit, but they got several 
of our horses. A bullet struck the handle of 
my saber. Another cut a twig from a bush 
within a few inches of my face, and a flying 
splinter struck me just above my left eye, 
and naturally I thought it was a bullet. The 
pain was so severe and I was so blind that 
I felt sure that the eye had been destroyed ; 
but a comrade, after examining the wound, 
assured me that it was only a scratch. 

As our company was an escort to a gen- 
eral officer, our commander would not per- 
mit us to return the fire, but turned and 
moved us briskly over the hill out of view of 
the enemy. 

Our presence here, so far in front of our 
battle line, was due to the fact that General 
Bragg had sent us with Gilmer, his chief of 
artillery, to select a route for the guns, as 
he had to bring them into action through a 
dense growth of timber. Soon after we had 
left the hill where the enemy had fired on 
us we met the Confederate line of battle go- 

52 



Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

llllillllllllllililllllllllillllllllllllllilllillllllllllllllllllilllillllllllllllllllllllllH 

ing into action. This was the grandest, 
most solemn and tragic scene I had ever 
witnessed. The sun was just coming up 
over the hilltop, its bright rays touching the 
half-green forest with a golden beauty that 
could not but charm the eye and thrill the 
heart even in the presence of death. It was 
one of those rare mornings that, in a deep 
woods, casts a charm of mingled silence and 
wild music. In this sunlit antechamber of 
carnage there were bird songs and the 
tongueless voices of whispering waters — 
timid, blended melodies of uncounted centu- 
ries that here had sounded their glad chorus 
to all the mornings of the springtime since 
trees first grew and rains first fell, since 
mosses first floored the virgin valleys and 
primal grasses climbed the fresh slopes of 
the new-born hills. 

The intermittent firing had ceased, and 
the restful music of nature was broken only 
by the tramp of men and horses. Youth, 
young manhood, and the middle-aged were 
mixed in these advancing columns of the 
South's best blood, and the unspoken 

53 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllN 

thought upon every face was that many 
were marching to certain death. 

This line, the first in the Confederate ad- 
vance, unrolled as it moved until it reached 
a maximum length of nearly three miles, 
covering the entire approach to the Federal 
Army. The unevenness of the ground and 
other natural obstacles sometimes broke the 
continuity of the line, but the gap was soon 
closed as the militant host swung forward. 

Under the ordinary conditions of camp 
life and of the field of the preparatory drill, 
the good-natured rivalry of cavalry and in- 
fantry would show at every opportunity. 
The infantry would jeer the cavalry as 
''buttermilk rangers," and the dragoons 
would retaliate with 'Veb-footed beef eat- 
ers." But on this morning of their first 
baptism of fire it was different. There was 
no word spoken, and on every face was pic- 
tured solemn and anxious thought. None 
but God could know how many would 
emerge safely from that valley of death into 
which they were about to descend. 

When the Confederate line encountered 
the Union Army, it seemed to me that the 

54 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



two lines fired at the same time, and one 
excitable soldier in our command ex- 
claimed: ^^Boys, the war is over! Every 
man is killed on both sides !'^ He had been 
a squirrel hunter, and had never heard any- 
thing like a volley of musketry. After the 
first volley, the roar of guns was continu- 
ous throughout the day. 

General Sherman, who was in our imme- 
diate front, was a veteran of the Mexican 
War, and he had hurriedly posted his men 
on an elevation that was covered with a 
thick growth of timber and underbrush, 
which almost entirely concealed his line. 
While our line was in motion, we had to 
approach up a considerable rise to reach 
the top of the ridge. The enemy could de- 
liver his fire at us while lying flat on the 
ground, but our line was compelled to fire 
while moving. The object of the Confeder- 
ate commander was to move his army 
quickly into close range, as the Union Army 
was equipped with greatly superior arms. 

Our men were armed with the old-style, 
smooth-bored muskets that would not carry 
over one hundred yards with any degree of 

55 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

accuracy, and we could not afford to stop 
and try to shoot it out with an adversary 
armed with long-ranged rifles. Besides, the 
enemy was surprised by the sudden attack, 
and we had much to gain from their imme- 
diate unpreparedness by pressing for closer 
action. The Union commander was unable 
to bring all his men to the rescue ; and if we 
could keep his front rank pressed and fall- 
ing back, it would be sure to demoralize the 
rear formation. 

General Forrest once said that he would 
rather have a ^^five-minutes bulge than a 
week of tactics,^' and I think that much of 
his great success was due to the application 
of this theory. 

I have more than once viewed the sick- 
ening wreck of battle, the devastation of 
cyclones, and the havoc of railroad acci- 
dents, and wondered how any human being 
could pass through such mills of destruction 
unharmed. On this occasion, as on many 
others, I saw men go through a veritable 
hail of lead and iron unscathed, and I had 
the feeling that it was the providence of 
God. 

56 



Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

Thus far the Confederate line at some 
points had met with resistance, but the 
fighting advance was steady until the Union 
forward camp had been penetrated and both 
wings had been turned on the center. 

When I rode through the first camp, the 
kettles on the fires were steaming with boil- 
ing water, and meat and bread were cook- 
ing in the ovens; but the enemy had to go 
hungry that day. I saw the bodies of a few 
Union soldiers who had been killed in their 
tents and horses shot down at the hitching 
posts in the rear of the camps. 

A large rubberized blanket was my part 
of the spoils that came with the early sur- 
prise, and this trophy afterwards proved 
very serviceable. In all my service of four 
years I never saw a battle field as rich in the 
legitimate spoils of war as was the field of 
Shiloh. 

As a courier, I had opportunities far 
above the average soldier to observe the 
wreck of battle, and I think the greatest 
number of killed and wounded lay in the 
narrow valley of the Shiloh Spring Branch 
on both sides of the Corinth and Pittsburg 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

Jiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

Landing Road. The ground was literally 
covered with dead and dying men. 

In passing this point, my horse received 
a bullet in one of his front legs, and I was 
compelled to secure a new mount. 

Near this place General Bragg had a 
horse killed under him, and another near 
the Landing later in the day. 

Soon after passing this center of carnage 
I witnessed a singular thing. A grapeshot, 
striking the limb of a tree under which a 
number of mounted officers had gathered, 
glanced downward and struck a horse just 
in the rear of the saddle, penetrating his 
body and entering the ground. The horse 
was killed instantly, but the rider was not 
injured. 

At this time the outlook was bright for 
the Confederate arms. About the middle of 
the day, the Union Army, in falling back 
and taking new positions, lodged the com- 
mands of Prentiss and W. H. L. Wallace in 
a thick woods, which after the fight was 
called the ''Hornet's Nest," and this place 
proved a great surprise for both defendants 
and assailants. Through it runs an old, de- 

58 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



serted highway, now known in history as 
the ^^Sunken Road." Worn by the travel 
and flushed by the rains and snows of many 
years, this remote and unpretentious road 
became a most welcome trench of protection 
to the troops of Prentiss and Wallace. Be- 
tween this road and the approaching Con- 
federate lines was a thick woods, which com- 
pletely cut off the view of the attacking reg- 
iments and forced them to move against an 
unseen foe. 

And so this long-hidden and almost for- 
gotten road, with its fringe of greening 
woods, proved a pitfall of death and disas- 
ter to the Confederate Army and, in my 
opinion, the salvation of the Union Army. 

Soon after the attack on this position be- 
gan Gen. A. S. Johnston was killed, and, of 
course, this had a disconcerting effect on the 
Confederates. To lose the supreme head of 
an army in such a crisis, however able may 
be his successor, is to approach the brink of 
defeat, for an event so dramatic and mourn- 
ful cannot but shock the very heart of an 
advancing army and throw it into a tem- 
porary paralysis. Such was the condition 

59 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 



of the Confederate host at Shiloh at 2 : 30 
P.M. on April 6, 1862. 

As soon as General Beauregard was ap- 
prised of General Johnston's death, he gath- 
ered his bleeding forces and hurled regiment 
after regiment against the ''Hornet's Nest/' 
with its ''sunken road" of destiny, sweeping 
all supporting artillery of the enemy from 
that portion of the field; but the gray troops 
could not see the hidden line of blue until 
they were within a few feet of the old road. 
The Union troops would suddenly rise out 
of the ground, fire, and sink from view 
again. 

Only after a long and concentrated fire 
from sixty-two pieces of Confederate artil- 
lery under General Ruggles did the blue line 
of the "sunken road" abandon its fateful 
trench of chance and fall back. Then both 
of its flanks were turned. General Wallace 
was mortally wounded, and General Pren- 
tiss, with more than two thousand troops, 
was captured. But — alas ! — the hours 
wasted before that "sunken road" brought 
us in weariness too near the edge of the ap- 
proaching night; and, with a seeming vic- 

60 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



tory in our grasp, with the brave, though 
depleted and disorganized army of blue at 
bay at the river's brink, we saw the battle 
cease for that day ; and in the early falling 
shadows and through the long, long night 
came the troops of Lew Wallace and of 
Buell, unscathed and fresh, and twenty-five 
thousand strong. 

This was a sad development to our tired 
army that had fought without ceasing for 
eleven hours ; and at about 6 o'clock we were 
withdrawn to the Union camps, where we 
fell into the obliterating sleep of exhaus- 
tion. I was lying on my rubber blanket, and 
about midnight there was such a downpour 
of rain as I have seldom seen. My blanket 
held water so well that I was partly sub- 
merged when I woke, and the remainder of 
the night was spent in cat naps, sitting on 
the ground with my back against a tree. 

On Monday morning, the 7th, the battle 
opened with not less than twenty-five thou- 
sand fresh troops added to Grant's sorely 
pressed lines, and so the Confederate hopes 
of Shiloh took wings ; but in the deep gloom 
of the changed situation, our army went 

61 



Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllHIIIilllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllillllllH 

into battle line with the coming of the day. 
Every Confederate had heard the disheart- 
ening news; but they were soldiers still, 
and, with a courage that at this far-distant 
day is difficult to understand, they held the 
enemy to a very slow advance until past the 
hour of noon. 

With no Confederate reenforcements in 
prospect, General Beauregard began, early 
in the afternoon, to withdraw the gray 
army from the unequal conflict. We retired 
in good order, and were deeply surprised 
that the Union forces made no attempt to 
pursue us beyond their encampment. 

We marched back to Corinth, taking with 
us all captured cannon and other arms, 
without a rear-guard fight. 

General Forrest stopped at the village of 
Pea Ridge, about eight miles from the bat- 
tle field, and on Tuesday, with all the cav- 
alry he could get together, met a division of 
the enemy which had advanced to Monterey. 
As we charged this column, General For- 
rest's horse became unmanageable and car- 
ried him through and beyond the Union line, 
and we felt sure that he would be either 

62 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



killed or captured; but, after turning his 
horse, he charged back through a troop of 
the enemy and miraculously escaped with a 
wound in the foot. 

Thus ended the battle of Shiloh, the first 
grand battle of the great war. 

It is almost inconceivable that a battle so 
great and so deadly was fought by men un- 
acquainted with the harrowing art of war — 
raw troops thrown hastily together, a citi- 
zen soldiery that had never marched to battle 
except through the pages of books, white- 
handed Robin Hoods of the orchard and the 
meadow — indeed, '^boys^' in years as well 
as in that glorious comradeship of danger 
and death; and yet the ''Old Guard'' of Na- 
poleon never ''fixed bayonets'' with firmer 
courage than that which made history on 
the field of Shiloh sixty years ago. 

The soldiers of Johnston's army were 
armed with a variety of guns which looked 
more like the gathered heirlooms of a mu- 
seum than arms of battle — shotguns, squir- 
rel rifles, antiquated muskets, and a few 
modern rifles. 

The Union troops, for the most part, were 

63 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

neither so new to war nor so poorly armed 
as the Confederates, many of them having 
been in the fights of Henry and Donelson, 
and the entire army being equipped with 
the latest improved firearms. 

But, considering all things, history must 
march these two armies of blue and gray 
down the years, bannered with a fadeless 
glory; and the great National Park which 
the government has established on their bat- 
tle field is a beautiful and impartial testi- 
monial which will speak to the centuries. 

To the friends and schoolmates of my 
youth who were among the killed of this 
great struggle, my heart has paid sixty years 
of silent tribute. My last glimpses of some 
of them, as the smoke of the conflict wrapped 
them in its thundering folds, have become 
vivid and cherished memories. It is the 
strange way of nature that the vanished 
spirits of my comrades linger in my vision 
as boys in the joyous flush of life's morning, 
while I have marched far up into the gray 
hills of the evening twilight, and I salute 
them across the long stretch of years. 

I had, as I thought, many narrow escapes 

64 




Thomas D. Duncan 
Fifty-seven years after his last ride with Forrest 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin 

from death at Shiloh. At one time a can- 
non ball passed so near me that the current 
of air created by its passage almost swept 
me from my horse. Many bullets and 
grapeshot fanned me and left their unwel- 
come whistle in my memory. 

Amid all the dangers of battle ever walks 
the spirit of humor, and there is no day so 
terrible that it fails to hold some laughable 
incident. I recall one such on the Shiloh 
field which illustrates the fact that man is 
the wildest creature of the animal kingdom 
when thoroughly frightened. Early on 
Monday morning a small squad of us was 
preparing a hasty breakfast of ''hardtack'' 
and bacon behind our line, having staked 
our horses out to bushes, when firing began 
suddenly on the line, followed by the passage 
of a wild-eyed rider, proclaiming the ar- 
rival of Buell at Hamburg, shouting that 
he was surrounding us and warning us to 
run for our lives. There was a large, long- 
haired trooper in our crowd, who made a 
hurried run for his horse, mounted him, and 
put the spurs to him, overlooking the fact 
that the horse was tied to a bush with a long 

65 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

!lllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilH^ 

rope. As the spurs went home in the horse's 
flanks, he began wildly racing around the 
bush, taking as wide a circle as his line 
would allow. The excited trooper tossed 
his head from side to side, trying to keep 
an eye on the firing line, while the horse 
increased his speed and narrowed his circle 
as the rope gradually wound around the 
bush until it became so tight that it brought 
him to a sudden stop and sent the trooper 
on a flying dive to the ground. We were 
all laughing at him when he ended his wild 
race, and he was so embarrassed and humil- 
iated that he secured a transfer to another 
company. 

Immediately after our return to Corinth 
I was detailed to pilot the corps of engineers 
in locating the line of breastworks that was 
to protect our front against the advance of 
the Union Army from Shiloh battle field. 






66 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

lllillllilllillllllllllllilllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllllH 



CHAPTER VII 



CORINTH AFTER SHILOH 




APTAIN J. H. LOCKETT was chief 
of the corps of engineers in throw- 
ing the line of fortifications around 
Corinth. 

We made the first general survey, com- 
mencing at a point on the Memphis and 
Charleston (now the Southern) Railway 
about one mile and a half east of Corinth 
and running north and west in a circle, 
keeping about the same distance from the 
town until we came to the I jams crossing, 
west of Corinth. 

I felt keenly the responsibility of my work 
as a pilot, but in boyhood and youth I had 
learned the faces of these hills and woods 
as one comes to know the kindly counte- 
nances of loving friends. In these quiet 
places I had played every game known to 
the boys of my day, including ''Hookey.'' I 
knew where the landscape smiled with 

67 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin 

sunny meadows or laughed with purling 
springs or frowned with the gloom of a tan- 
gled thicket or grew calm and dignified in 
the cooling shadows of stately groves. 

Just how well we did our work was never 
put to a test, as our army withdrew from 
Corinth before it was assailed; but our 
knowledge of the country and of the necessi- 
ties of that troubled time is mutely reflected 
in the remaining sections of that great coil 
of clay, in its segment of seven miles, still 
plainly visible after the rains and snows and 
frosts and freezes have charged against 
them through sixty years. 

At the point in our line of fortifications 
where the road forks, one prong going east- 
ward by Box Chapel and Farmington and 
the other in a northeasterly direction to Pea 
Ridge and Pittsburg Landing, we built dou- 
ble communicating lines and placed siege 
guns. 

When we had finished our fortifications 
and mounted heavy guns at the points of 
greatest danger, we settled down to await 
the approach of the Union Army under the 
direct command of General Halleck, moving 

68 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

upon us with an extreme and timid caution, 
which forever consigned him to a place 
among the world's smallest commanders of 
great armies. 

One cannot imagine Lee or Grant or 
Stonewall Jackson or W. T. Sherman tak- 
ing more than a month to cover twenty 
miles in pursuit of a smaller and defeated 
army. Napoleon or Hannibal, at Shiloh on 
the night of April 7, 1862, would have found 
the Confederate Army or the gates of Cor- 
inth before sunrise the next morning. 

Heretofore in our fights in this theater 
of war the Union forces had enjoyed the co- 
operation of the gunboats, and now we were 
all elated over the prospect of meeting the 
enemy out of range of his floating batteries. 

I was too young to know anything of the 
strategy of war, but the knowing ones were 
pointing out the reasons why the Confeder- 
ates had to defend Corinth. It was at the 
crossing of the only two trunk lines in the 
South at that time, and by these lines the 
Confederacy could transport whatever sup- 
plies, men, and guns it possessed to this 
point. Corinth was the key to the richness 

69 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

''ll'lll'llll'IIIIIIIIH 

of the Mississippi Valley and the outer gate- 
way to the Eastern South; and so if with 
these reasons urging Richmond, Corinth 
and these two essential lines of transporta- 
tion could not be saved, the future of the 
Confederacy would be dark indeed. My fa- 
ther made this gloomy forecast to me when 
Corinth was evacuated; and although I 
fought on as a stern duty, I never again 
hoped for the success of our cause. 

About the first of May, General Beaure- 
gard, desiring information regarding the 
movements of the enemy, called on the detail 
for three reliable scouts who knew the coun- 
try and were willing to undertake a danger- 
ous expedition within the Union lines, say- 
ing that he did not wish us to go as spies, 
but as Confederate soldiers, in full uniform, 
armed, and well mounted, notwithstanding 
the fact that it would be necessary for us 
to keep out of sight as much as possible. Dr. 
Lowry and Mose Austin responded to the 
call, and insisted that I should be the third 
man, as I knew the country and could guide 
them. Setting out early one morning, we 
traveled the main road until we passed our 

70 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

'iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

advanced pickets, and then took to the 
woods, moving cautiously and in single file 
until we were well within the Union lines. 

About two and a half miles beyond Cham- 
bers' Creek we came to the southwest corner 
of an old, abandoned plantation — no signs 
of its vanished life except an old house in a 
state of decay. There being no evidence of 
human occupants, we decided to rest our 
horses and investigate the house and the 
country beyond. Riding forward in single 
file across the opening between the woods 
and the house, Austin in front, Lowry next, 
and I in the rear, when within fifty feet of 
the front door, six Union soldiers stepped 
out from behind the house, covered us with 
their guns, and commanded us to halt. This 
we had already done. In the tense moment 
I remembered the quickness and speed of 
my horse. I knew that Lowry would not 
surrender, and neither did I intend to. 
When one of the men commanded us to come 
forward one at a time, Austin rode forward. 
This put him directly between us and the 
firing squad, and I took the opportunity and 
gave my horse a quick turn and told him to 

71 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

go. He wheeled so quickly that I came near 
losing my balance and falling, but I lay 
down and put my arms around his neck and 
did not try to check his speed until I had 
received the fire of the squad. Dr. Lowry 
used the same tactics, and he afterwards 
told me that he had thought out the same 
plan, but feared that I would not do as I did 
do and that our horses would get in a mix-up 
and cause us to be killed or captured. 

Our enemy, having muzzle-loading guns, 
had no time to reload before we were out of 
range. 

I have always considered this one of my 
narrowest escapes from death. 

We knew that we had no time to lose, as 
the Federal cavalry would soon be informed 
as to our presence ; so we diverted our course 
from the route we had come, traveling west- 
ward toward the Memphis and Charleston 
Railroad, and escaped without further con- 
tact with the enemy. 

We never again saw our comrade, Mose 
Austin. He was sent to Cairo, 111., and died 
in prison. 

About two weeks after this episode I was 

72 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

llllllllllllllllllillllllilllllllllllilllllllllllllllllllllililllilllillllllllllllllllH 

sent with a message to General Price^s head- 
quarters at the old Bogle Place, beyond the 
Stevenson Hill. It developed that the mes- 
sage contained information relative to the 
advance of the Union Army, then approach- 
ing Old Farmington, on the Hamburg and 
Farmington Road. 

When I delivered the message, I was in- 
formed that it was desired that the infor- 
mation be repeated to the colonel in com- 
mand of the picket east of Seven-Mile Creek, 
and, with this order, I set out upon my pro- 
longed mission. As I had to pass through 
Old Farmington, where our company was 
encamped, I stopped long enough to per- 
suade Bailey Donnelly to accompany me. 
Leaving the main road, we took a cattle trail 
along Seven-Mile Creek, thence across a 
swamp, to the east of which we found a 
country of thick undergrowth. Keeping in 
this for some distance, we struck the road 
again, and I soon delivered my message. 
We hastened to return ; and just as we were 
ready to leave the road for the country of 
thick undergrowth, we discovered a lone 
horseman coming over the top of the ridge 

73 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

above us. Slipping into the thicket, we 
dismounted, tied our horses, and cautiously 
crept back to ascertain whether the traveler 
was friend or foe. We soon discovered that 
he was deeply distressed and in a state of 
bewilderment. Riding first in one direction 
and then in another, he seemed to become 
more and more excited and confused. I was 
much excited when he came close enough for 
us to see that he wore the uniform of a Un- 
ion officer. He finally turned down toward 
us; and when he was close to us, we stepped 
from our hiding place and commanded him 
to surrender. He obeyed without any show 
of resistance, exhibiting great surprise and 
excitement, as he, at first, took us for guer- 
rillas ready to kill him. We explained to 
him that we were regular soldiers, and that 
his ultimate misfortune would be to be- 
come a prisoner. After disarming him, we 
mounted him on his own horse and took 
him to our command at Farmington. I took 
his six-shooters, and Donnelly his saddle and 
his sword, turning in his horse to the army 
with the prisoner. 

He told us that he was Major Phillips, of 

.74 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin^ 

some Illinois regiment, and that he was rec- 
onnoitering in front of his line and became 
separated from his regiment and lost his 
way. 

Since the war I have endeavored to locate 
Major Phillips, but have never heard of him. 
I think he was sent from Corinth to prison 
at Demopolis, Ala. If still living, I am sure 
that he would feel some interest in meeting 
one of his captors of that long-gone time of 
stress and danger and sorrow. 

In a few days after my return. General 
Pope threw a division of the Union Army 
across the Seven-Mile Creek opposite the 
Dick Smith Place, near Farmington, which 
force was vigorously met by a similar force 
of Confederates. For four or five hours 
there was a desperate fight, with the Union 
force at a great disadvantage because of the 
fact that their only way of approaching was 
by a narrow road through an impassable 
swamp. As soon as the Confederates dis- 
covered this condition, they brought reen- 
forcements to the point of action, and, by a 
strong counter attack, drove the enemy 

75 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 



back, with a considerable loss of Union men 
and one battery of guns. 

Then, later in May, came the fighting on 
the Purdy Road, three miles north of Cor- 
inth — at the old Dickey Field, on the Pea 
Ridge Road ; at the Surratt Place, on Bridge 
Creek ; on the Farmington Road, at the Box 
Chapel ; and on the Burnsville Road, at Shel- 
ton Hill, now the poorhouse. 

The Union Army was attacking along the 
entire line, and the general opinion on our 
side was that the day for a general engage- 
ment against Corinth and our entrench- 
ments had come. 

Our full force was called to the trenches, 
and remained in line of battle all day. But 
it developed afterwards that the enemy was 
only feeling his way toward our fortifica- 
tions and gaining the higher points wher- 
ever possible, so as to establish his large 
guns in positions from which he could shell 
our lines before storming our works with 
his infantry. General Halleck had made 
every preparation to capture Corinth. In 
his final dispositions, heavy mortars had 
been so placed that they could throw shells 

76 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

illlllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllilllllN 

into the heart of the town. Rather novel sig- 
nal stations had been set up by securing high 
poles to the tops of trees. This enabled the 
signal corps to overlook the surrounding 
country, to see our line of entrenchments, 
and to direct the movements of attacking 
troops, as well as the fire of the shelling 
guns. 

Just how well General Beauregard had 
timed the attack of the enemy is shown by 
the closing events of the siege of Corinth. 

For many days our army had been mov- 
ing out train loads of supplies, and at night- 
fall on May 29 we were all lined up in the 
trenches; but as soon as darkness came, 
everything except the cavalry marched out, 
bidding a final adieu to Corinth. On the 
following morning at daybreak, when the 
enemy advanced his skirmish line, he met 
with no resistance; and when the first line 
of battle advanced, it found the trenches 
deserted. 

The regiment of Union troops sent 
around to the rear to prevent our with- 
drawal arrived too late, and our trains had 

77 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

llllllllllllllllllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllH 

all passed when they began removing rails 
from the tracks. 

As General Forrest had been wounded on 
the way from Shiloh, General Chalmers was 
in command of all the cavalry which covered 
our retreat from Corinth to Tupelo, Miss. 



;:::-\ 

V--X 



V 



78 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

IlillllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllH^ 



CHAPTER VIII 



BATTLE OF RIENZI 




•^^^^^^^N May 31, 1862, in covering our re- 
treat from Corinth, we came to a 
clash with the Union cavalry near 
Rienzi, Miss. We had advanced with a reg- 
iment to a position along a field bordering 
on a skirt of woods, and our company was 
detailed to go forward and develop the force 
we knew was following us. The plan was to 
fire and fall back on our support, but in 
rounding a curve in the road we came so 
suddenly upon a company of the enemy that 
all preconceived plans were expelled from 
our excited minds. Our forces were about 
equal, and we immediately charged. This 
resulted in a very awkward mix-up for a 
few minutes. The Union company gave 
ground, and before we knew what was hap- 
pening we were face to face with a brigade 
of Union cavalry. Our plight was preca- 
rious indeed. My horse, no less excited than 

79 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

was his rider, carried me wildly for a few 
yards into the enemy's line. With the su- 
perhuman strength of necessity, I succeeded 
in turning him, but was forced to run the 
gantlet of a number of troopers, who, to 
my good fortune, had exhausted their guns 
and were using their sabers on our men. 
I was armed with a carbine and two six- 
shooters. I had already emptied the car- 
bine and one of my pistols. As I neared the 
getting-out place, I moved as rapidly as a 
good and thoroughly frightened horse could 
carry me ; but I saw two soldiers moving to 
close my narrow gap, armed with sabers. I 
reserved my fire until I was close to them, 
and then fired point blank at each of them 
in close succession. I did not tarry to see 
the full result of my fire, but I know that I 
stopped their charge on me. I knew that if 
I could get by them, nothing but a bullet 
could overtake me. 

One of our boys was so closely chased by 
a Union soldier that the ^Tank^' was able 
to freely belabor him with a very dull saber. 
Finally the Confederate turned and said to 
his chaser : ^^Quit hitting me with that thing, 

80 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

lllifllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllH 

you durned fool! Haven't you any better 
sense than that?'' This comrade escaped by 
strategy and quick action, but his left arm 
and shoulder were so badly bruised that he 
was compelled to carry the arm in a ^^sling" 
for a month. 

This fight occurred near Rienzi, Miss., 
and was rated by us as only an inconsequen- 
tial cavalry skirmish ; but it later developed 
that the Union troop was commanded by 
Gen. Philip Sheridan, and that he, in honor 
of this, his first fight and victory, named his 
war horse ^^Rienzi." This was the horse 
which carried him on his celebrated ride at 
Winchester, Va, 

The next day after this fight we retired 
to Blackland, near Booneville, Miss., and 
from here our company was sent back on a 
scouting mission toward Rienzi. Coming 
suddenly on a picket guard, we captured five 
or six men gathered at a blacksmith shop, 
where they were sharpening their sabers on 
a grindstone. These were among the men 
we had encountered the day before, and they 
were not satisfied with their experience in 
pounding on us with dull weapons. 

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At Blackland, General Chalmers collected 
all the Confederate cavalry, with two field 
batteries, and, selecting an advantageous 
position, decided to oppose any force that 
might be following our retreat. Sending 
out decoys, we tried in vain to draw the en- 
emy into our trap; but our efforts were 
without avail, as he returned to Corinth and 
vicinity and our army stopped at Tupelo 
and went into camp for a little while. 



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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 



CHAPTER IX 



MURFREESBORO AND KENTUCKY 
CAMPAIGN 




|0 meet emergencies at different points, 
^ this Grand Army of the Southwest 
was divided into a number of organ- 
izations. General Price, with one part, was 
sent west of the Mississippi River ; one part 
was sent to Vicksburg; while the largest 
portion was given to General Bragg to be- 
gin his invasion of Kentucky. Forrest, with 
his troops, marched to Chattanooga, from 
which point, with his own command, Whar- 
ton's Texas Regiment, and a small number 
from the command of Gen. Joe Wheeler, he 
made a rapid advance on Murfreesboro, 
Tenn., where General Crittenden was 
guarding large stores of military supplies. 
Reaching the outskirts of the town about 
daylight, we chased the pickets into the 
camp of a Michigan regiment. Pressing 
rapidly at every point, we soon had every- 

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thing before us on the run, as our attack was 
a complete surprise. Our success was abso- 
lute, and this capture of a Union division 
with its commander and the military sup- 
plies being guarded was one of the most 
spectacular strokes of the Civil War. 

This attack and capture staged an occur- 
rence which illustrates the tragedy of war. 
Judge Richardson, for many years after the 
war a member of Congress from the Hunts- 
ville (Ala.) district, some time before our 
capture of Murfreesboro had been captured 
near that place; and although he had suc- 
ceeded in escaping from his captors, he was 
still inside the Union lines. In wandering 
around, trying to find a gap through which 
he could reach safety, he came upon a sol- 
dier who told him that he, too, was trying to 
get through the Union lines ; and so the two 
traveled together for a day or so until they 
were recaptured by troops from the garri- 
son and placed in prison at Murfreesboro. 
It developed after their capture that the 
companion of Richardson was a spy, or at 
least the enemy found suspicious papers in 
his possession; and after a trial, both were 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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sentenced to be shot. This sentence was due 
to be executed on the morning that our 
troops rode into Murfreesboro, preventing 
the death of Richardson and his fellow pris- 
oner. After we had gained possession of 
the town, the following facts came to light: 
Richardson and his companion were in a 
wooden cell, with the death watch over them, 
when our troops attacked; and when it be- 
came evident that we would succeed in cap- 
turing the garrison, the Union guard set fire 
to the house to ''see the rebels burn," and 
the lire was making headway when our ad- 
vanced troops reached the place and released 
the prisoners. 

After the matter was explained to Gen- 
eral Forrest, and Mr. Richardson verified 
the truth of the story, the General asked 
Richardson and his companion to identify 
the guard. The Union prisoners were lined 
up ; and when the two searchers came to the 
guilty man, he was marched out and shot to 
death in the presence of both commands 
after General Forrest had explained the of- 
fense to General Crittenden. 

After our return to Chattanooga from 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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Murfreesboro, we took the advance of 
Bragg's army, and on September 14, 1862, 
appeared in front of the Union fort at Mun- 
fordsville, Ky. Then followed a rather ill- 
timed attack on this strong position, in 
which our men lost heavily and accom- 
plished very little. 

Our cavalry played practically no part in 
this battle, and I was an onlooker. 

After our ineffective attack, the main 
body of our army came up and captured the 
garrison. 

Then, after feinting in a threatening at- 
titude toward Louisville, we withdrew ; and 
in our southward movement our army en- 
countered General BuelFs army, resulting 
in the battle of Perryville, one of the fiercest 
struggles of the war. The result of this 
battle is generally considered a draw, but 
the immediate advantage was with the Con- 
federates, as our purpose was not stayed, 
and we continued our retreat to Murfrees- 
boro, Tenn. 

During our advance into Kentucky the 
cavalry was commanded by Col. John H. 
Morgan. We had a number of fights, cap- 

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tured many soldiers, and destroyed large 
quantities of military stores. 

By the brilliant work of John H. Mor- 
gan and N. B. Forrest, cavalry leaders, Gen- 
eral Buell was prevented from gaining any 
hurtful advantage over our retreating and 
smaller army. 



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CHAPTER X 



THE BATTLE OF CORINTH 




HE command of General Forrest was 
0^^^/ not in the battle of Corinth, as it oc- 
curred while we were in Kentucky; 
but because of the sentiment that attaches 
to the place as my home I desire to record 
here the substance of a description given 
me by a kinsman of the Second Texas who 
was in the battle. 

After the battle of luka, on September 
19 and 20, 1862, the commands of General 
Price and General Van Dorn were united; 
and these two commanders resolved to at- 
tack Corinth, then occupied by the Union 
Army under General Rosecrans. 

Under the supreme command of General 
Van Dorn, the Confederate Army left Che- 
walla, a railroad station eight miles west of 
Corinth, on the morning of October 3, 1862. 

About ten o'clock in the morning the or- 
der to attack was given, and the command 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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moved forward cautiously, with its skirmish 
line deployed in front. In a short time the 
skirmishers of the Second Texas became 
engaged with skirmishers of the enemy, and 
the Forty-Second Alabama Regiment, com- 
ing up during the engagement, mistook the 
Texans for a command of the enemy, and 
fired upon them, killing Lieutenant Haynes, 
of Company E., and six private soldiers. 

The engagement soon became general. 
The enemy, however, retreated and fell back 
beyond the old Confederate breastworks, the 
same that I had helped to locate before the 
evacuation of Corinth. As our line ad- 
vanced, we discovered that the Union Army 
was making a stand at an entrenched camp, 
which was strongly fortified. Their resis- 
tance was stubborn, but we drove them from 
their strong position. They did not retire a 
great distance before making another stand, 
seemingly with greatly increased numbers. 
After a brief stand, they charged us. The 
Second Texas received the shock, and, fu- 
riously counter attacking, they cut the Un- 
ion line and captured some three hundred 
prisoners. At this juncture several Union 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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batteries opened a tremendous fire on the 
right of the Texans from an elevated posi- 
tion on the south side of the Memphis and 
Charleston (now Southern) Railroad. The 
Second Texas was ordered to charge the bat- 
teries. Colonel Rodgers saw that they 
had been discovered by a brigade of infan- 
try, and asked for reenforcements. John- 
son's and Dockery's Arkansas Regiments of 
Cabell's Brigade were sent, and the three 
regiments charged, driving back the infan- 
try and capturing three batteries of light 
artillery. 

We next found the stubborn enemy en- 
trenched in a camp on an elevation between 
two prongs of a creek, where fresh troops 
had already been massed. Here was pre- 
sented the most determined stand we had 
met with during the day. After hard fight- 
ing, with heavy losses on both sides, the 
Union troops were finally driven from this 
position at the point of the bayonet. The Un- 
ion officers tried gallantly to stem the tide. 
General Ogelsby and General Hackelman 
being desperately wounded in a vain effort 
to rally their beaten soldiers. In this camp 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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we found bread, butter, cheese, crackers, 
and other food in abundance, and, while en- 
joying a short rest, partook of the enemy's 
unwilling hospitality during his enforced 
absence — the first food we had tasted that 
day. 

When driven from this position, the en- 
emy fled precipitately to the protection of 
the inner fortifications at Corinth. 

About sunset the exhausted Confederates, 
with empty cartridge boxes, halted within 
about a half mile of Corinth and very near 
the inner fortifications. The loss in our reg- 
iment was very heavy. Among the wounded 
were Lieut. A. K. Leigh and Halbert Rodg- 
ers, the youthful son of the colonel who, 
during the day, had handled his regiment 
with consummate skill, being with it in 
every position of danger. 

Before daylight on October 4 the Confed- 
erate artillery opened a vigorous fire on the 
enemy's works, and a lively contest between 
the gray and blue cannon was kept up until 
after daylight. During the early morning 
there was sharp fighting on the skirmish 
line in front of the Second Texas, in which 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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the Union skirmishers were driven in and 
their commander, Col. Joseph A. Mower, 
was severely wounded and captured, but 
again fell into the hands of his friends that 
evening after our retreat from Corinth. 

Directly in front of the Second Texas, a 
short distance north of the Memphis and 
Charleston Railroad, was 'Tort Robinette,'' 
with three twenty-pound siege guns ; and in 
'Tort Williams,'' on the south side of the 
railroad, there were four twenty-four 
pounders and two eight-inch Howitzers. 
On the eminence between 'Tort Williams" 
and the railroad were six guns of Battery 
F., U. S. Light Artillery; and on the south 
side of the same fort were two guns of the 
Second Illinois Light Artillery — all com- 
manding the field to the westward and in 
positions to sweep the hillside in front of 
"Robinette." In addition to these, two guns 
of the Wisconsin Light Artillery occupied a 
point just north of and very close to "Robi- 
nette," between it and the Chewalla dirt 
road, and in a position to sweep the top and 
side of the hill in front. 

These were the positions of the Union ar- 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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tillery, seventeen guns in all, in front of the 
Second Texas Regiment and commanding 
the ground over which that wonderful or- 
ganization of fighters was about to deliver 
one of the most daring and desperate as- 
saults in the history of wars. 

The Union infantry was also placed ad- 
vantageously for dealing destruction to the 
assaulting column. 

The Forty-Seventh Illinois Regiment lay 
behind the railroad, immediately in front of 
*Tort Williams," covering the hillside with 
their deadly Springfield rifles. The Forty- 
Third Ohio occupied the ground immedi- 
ately behind the breastworks on the north 
side of ''Robinette," with its left near the 
fort. The Eleventh Missouri was lying 
down under the hill, about fifty yards in the 
rear of ''Robinette," with its right and left 
wings expanding opposite the Forty-Third 
and Sixty-Third Ohio, respectively. The 
Twenty-Seventh Ohio occupied the trenches 
on the right of the Sixty-Third; and the 
Thirty-Ninth Ohio was still further to the 
north, on the right of the Twenty-Seventh, 
with its right wing facing north, at right an- 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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gles to the line of its left wing and to the 
Twenty-Seventh and the Sixty-Third. 

The order to charge had been expected 
every moment since daylight; but owing to 
the sudden illness of General Herbert, com- 
manding the Left Division of Price's Corps, 
the initial attack had been delayed until 
about ten o'clock. During the interval of 
waiting the men were subjected to the most 
intense mental strain. As every trained 
and experienced soldier will testify, the sus- 
pense of waiting in the prelude of an onset 
is more trying than the actual conflict, 
wherein the heat of battle fevers the mind 
into a kind of fearless frenzy that causes it 
to lose the weights and measures of danger. 

When the order to advance was given, 
that fine body of soldiers obeyed as unhesi- 
tatingly as if the impulse to move had been 
that of a single man, the different regiments 
being massed in five lines of two companies 
each. When they encountered the abatis — 
an obstruction of felled trees, with sharp- 
ened and interwoven branches — the forma- 
tion was necessarily somewhat broken, just 
as the enemy's artillery began to blast and 

94 



Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 



wither the moving mass of men; but each 
man, though but an atom of the fiery storm, 
moved with a separate though strangely co- 
operative intelligence, advancing with re- 
markable rapidity toward the common ob- 
jective, ''Fort Robinette." As soon as the 
abatis was passed, a partial restoration of 
the organizations took place in the very fur- 
nace of battle as the lines sprang forward 
with a many-voiced yell. When they 
reached the brow of the hill, the earth trem- 
bled under the deafening crash of the op- 
posing artillery, while the Union infantry 
regiments poured a deadly enfilading fire 
into the right flank of the Texans. It was 
beyond the power of human endurance, 
however sublime the courage that willed it, 
to withstand such a shock of lead and iron, 
and the attackers of ''Robinette" recoiled 
through a quivering sheet of flame. With 
encouraging words from the intrepid col- 
onel, a partial reformation was effected, and 
the order to charge again was given. As 
steel on flint, a blow to the brave strikes fire 
in the soul; and so these smitten Texans 
flamed with fury as they returned to the 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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charge. The slaughter was one-sided and 
terrible; and as the men in gray recoiled a 
second time, the fourth color bearer fell with 
the flag in his hand. Then it was that Col- 
onel Rodgers seized the tattered banner and 
rode into the midst of his heroic band. Once 
more forming them into a ragged line, he 
asked if they were willing to follow him, and 
they responded with an affirmative yell. 
Again the order to advance was given, and 
the Colonel rode up the hill directly toward 
the fort, bearing the colors. 

With a steady gaze fixed on the fort, he 
moderated his horse's pace to the pace of his 
men. The column moved forward in double- 
quick time. Their ranks were ruthlessly 
raked with lead and iron; but the living 
filled the gaps left by the dead, as the bleed- 
ing remnant pressed on to the fort. 

Colonel Rodgers rode into the ditch that 
fronted the works, followed by the head of 
his column ; and as the others came up, they 
scattered around either side. The right 
wing of the Second Texas was met by the 
determined front of the Forty-Third Ohio, 
and a hand-to-hand conflict followed. The 

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onset of the Texans was made with such 
reckless desperation that the Ohioans were 
put to flight, leaving one-half of their num- 
ber killed or wounded on the ground, their 
brave colonel, J. Kirby-Smith, being among 
the slain. 

On the north side of "Robinette" the left 
wing of the Second Texas came in contact 
with the Sixty-Third Ohio; and, after a 
bloody contest at close quarters, the blue col- 
umn was driven back at the point of the bay- 
onet, leaving fifty-three per cent of its num- 
ber on the ground. The section of light ar- 
tillery at that point made its escape to the 
Union rear. 

While these bloody conflicts were taking 
place on both flanks of the fort. Colonel 
Rodgers climbed upon the parapet and 
planted the flag of his regiment in triumph 
at its top. The men who had followed him 
leaped fearlessly down inside the fort, and, 
with others who had crawled through the 
embrasures, unexpectedly engaged the can- 
noneers in a hand-to-hand conflict. The 
fight was short and fierce, and thirteen out 
of twenty-six men of the First U. S. Infan- 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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try who manned the guns of the fort were 
slain, and a number of others, including the 
commander. Lieutenant Robinette, were 
wounded. 

Thus was the fort captured and silenced ; 
but 'Tort Williams'' continued to pour its 
deadly fire into the gray, thinned ranks and 
into the struggling mass of gray and blue, 
while the Forty-Seventh Illinois, from its 
elevated position along the railroad, swept 
the parapets of ^'Robinette'' with long-range 
rifles as the Confederates scaled them. 

Meantime a fearful hand-to-hand fight 
was raging in the heart of the town — 
around the railroad depot, the Tishomingo 
Hotel, the Corinth House, and even in the 
yard around the headquarters of General 
Rosecrans, the old Duncan homestead. The 
fighting was furious, but the heavy reserves 
of fresh troops which the Union commander 
had massed in the central and the southwest 
portions of the town met the torn and half- 
exhausted columns of the Confederates and 
literally plucked victory from defeat. 

The victorious reserves of the enemy 
marched upon '^Robinette" from the town, 

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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

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Gen. David S. Stanley advancing from the 
southeast with the reformed Forty-Third 
Ohio and two fresh regiments. 

When it was apparent to the little band of 
Texans in and upon the captured fort that 
their dearly bought victory was of no avail 
and that the day was lost with the repulse 
of the Confederates in the center of the 
town, Colonel Rodgers' first thought was to 
save the lives of as many of his men as pos- 
sible, and he waved his handkerchief from 
the top of the parapet, making known his 
desire to surrender; but the enemy either 
did not see him or misunderstood or mis- 
trusted the signal, for the firing continued 
from both advancing columns. He then said 
to the men around him : ^^The enemy refuses 
to accept our surrender, and we will sell our 
lives as dearly as possible.'' 

With a calm precision, he then ordered his 
men to fall back into the ditch outside the 
fort, and there gave the order for the re- 
treat. He climbed out of the ditch with the 
flag in one hand and his pistol in the other, 
the remnant of his shattered band cluster- 
ing around him, and they slowly retreated 

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backward as they returned the fire of the 
advancing and overwhelming lines of blue. 

Up to this time the Eleventh Missouri 
Regiment had not fired a shot ; but about the 
time this heroic retreat began, it suddenly 
rose from its waiting position, rushed upon 
and around the fort, and poured a withering 
fire into the retreating band of Texans, and 
their intrepid leader fell, pierced with 
eleven wounds. The flag fell across his 
body ; and the few yet remaining of his loyal 
band, remembering the vows made when 
this flag was presented to the regiment at 
Houston by the ladies of Texas, seized and 
bore the fallen emblem away, Ben Wade, of 
Company I, being the man who rescued it. 

By this time the whole Confederate Army 
was in retreat. General Villepigue's Bri- 
gade of Loveirs Division marched by the left 
flank across the Memphis and Charleston 
Railroad and threw its columns between the 
shattered ranks of Maury's Division and 
the expected pursuit. The conquerors stood 
aghast at the combination of circumstances 
which had given them the victory. En- 
chanted by the comparative calm that fol- 

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lowed the storm, they seemed satisfied to 
rest upon their laurels and forego the oppor- 
tunity to follow the weary and beaten foe. 

When the smoke lifted its somber veil 
from the sorrowful field of carnage, the face 
of the landscape was distorted with horror, 
expressed in suffering and death. But the 
spirit of immortal glory hovered there, for 
the soil of Mississippi had been sanctified by 
the blood of heroes, and amid the falling 
tears and broken hearts of the South and of 
the North the Muse of History was gather- 
ing from the broken circles of death-smitten 
homes names for the roll of eternal fame. 

The whole country was electrified by the 
news of the fearless assault of Rodgers and 
his Texans. Illustrated papers of the North 
carried pictures of the dramatic scenes. 

In closing his report of the battle. General 
Van Dorn said : ^'1 cannot refrain from 
mentioning here the conspicuous gallantry 
of a noble Texan whose deeds at Corinth are 
the constant theme of both friends and foes. 
As long as courage, manliness, fortitude, 
patriotism, and honor exist, the name of 
Rodgers will be revered and honored among 

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men. He fell in the front of battle and died 
beneath the colors of his regiment in the 
very center of the enemy's stronghold. He 
sleeps, and Glory is his sentinel." 

The deeds of this brave officer called forth 
not only the encomium of his commanding 
general, but also the approval and admira- 
tion of the big-hearted commander of the 
Union Army. By order of General Rose- 
crans, the body of the fallen hero was bur- 
ied with military honors upon the field 
where he fell and the grave inclosed with 
wooden palings. 

What sadder illustration of War's ruth- 
less waste of manhood could there be than is 
presented in the sacrificial death of that he- 
roic son of Texas? What a wealth of cour- 
age, integrity, and high purpose that might 
have been utilized in the bloodless battles of 
a nation's peaceful progress was forced to 
perish under the juggernaut of fraternal 
strife ! What a scathing indictment of our 
civilization — our politics, our religion — is 
that lonely grave ! 

Among the officers killed were Colonel 
Rodgers, Second Texas; Colonel Johnston, 

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Twentieth Arkansas; Major James, Twen- 
tieth Arkansas; Col. J. D. Martin, com- 
manding the Fourth Brigade of Price's Di- 
vision. 




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CHAPTER XI 



WEST TENNESSEE 




FTER coming out of the campaign of 
Kentucky, the cavalry forces were 
employed to harass the enemy; and 
after the lapse of nearly sixty years, it is 
exhilarating to my imagination to recall the 
wondrous part played by General Forrest 
and his comparatively small command in 
that great game of life and death. 

While Morgan's command was striking 
the key points of the Louisville and Nash- 
ville Railroad to hamper the supply lines of 
Rosecrans at Nashville, Forrest was per- 
forming the same service against the Mo- 
bile and Ohio and the Memphis and Charles- 
ton, the supply lines of the enemy at Cor- 
inth, Miss. 

Leaving Chattanooga late in November, 
he hurried to West Tennessee, crossing the 
Tennessee River at Clifton and pushing 
hurriedly on to the Mobile and Ohio Rail- 

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road line. In rapid succession he engaged 
and captured the garrisons of Jackson, 
Humboldt, Trenton, and Spring Creek, with 
large supplies of arms and food. 

In the same campaign we captured the 
garrison of Lexington, Tenn., and, inciden- 
tally, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, who in later 
years became the great outstanding orator 
of the nation and its most brilliant agnostic, 
or free religious thinker. 

On account of the smallness of his com- 
mand. General Forrest could only hope to 
succeed by rapidity of movement; and this 
necessitated the destruction of all captured 
property and the paroling of all prisoners. 

Only a commander of genius and boldness 
could have coped with such a situation as 
confronted Forrest. The territory in which 
he operated was in the hands of the en- 
emy, both lines of railroad controlled and 
guarded by the Union armies. On the east 
was the Tennessee River, deep and cold, 
and, ever hovering on its turbulent waters, 
a fleet of gunboats, such as had carried ter- 
ror to Henry and Donelson and Shiloh. 

Thus hemmed within the encircling bar- 

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riers of the Tennessee, the Ohio, the Missis- 
sippi, and the army of Grant, this fearless 
Murat of the Confederacy moved at will, a 
veritable flying scourge of death and de- 
struction, while the surprised and startled 
enemy made hasty and widespread prepara- 
tion for his capture; but the reincarnated 
spirit of the Cavaliers rode as they reck- 
oned, and, as in the movements of all truly 
great commanders, the unexpected hap- 
pened. 

At a place called "Parker Cross-Roads,^' 
opposite and west of Clifton, on the Ten- 
nessee, the Union Army had a division of 
infantry and artillery about to be reinforced 
by a brigade then on its way from Union 
City by the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. 

We were put in line of battle and ordered 
to an immediate attack against the Parker 
Cross-Roads force, a portion of his com- 
mand attacking in the rear, while that por- 
tion with which I was fighting attacked the 
front. Meantime a regiment had been sent 
to meet the column coming from Union City. 
The Cross-Roads fight was waged in the 
open, and, considering the numbers en- 

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gaged, was as fierce and bloody as Shiloh or 
Perryville. 

In the confusion resulting from being at- 
tacked front and rear, without any knowl- 
edge of our numbers, the enemy, under a 
flag of truce sent by General Forrest, with 
a demand for surrender, was undoubtedly 
at the point of yielding, when a lightning- 
like surprise broke the calm where the fight- 
ing had ceased. 

The Union column from Union City had 
missed our regiment sent to meet them, and 
had attacked our horse holders without 
warning and driven them in great confu- 
sion into our fighting ranks. Hurriedly, 
General Forrest concentrated his entire 
force, turned the horse holders into fight- 
ers*, and placed a small guard around the 
horses. 

We immediately charged the newcomers 
and put them to flight, and then headed for 
the Tennessee River. We never knew nor 
stopped to inquire what the enemy, so near 
to the point of surrender, thought of our 
sudden withdrawal. 

When we had crossed the river on our 

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way in, we had sunk our boats and left them 
cabled, so that we could use them on the re- 
turn ; so, by working all night, we recrossed 
with artillery and full command and drew 
safely away from the zone of danger, only 
to enter another. 

It is not necessary to the discerning 
reader to comment upon the genius of For- 
rest displayed in this campaign. Great dan- 
ger seemed to sharpen his abilities and make 
surer his success. 



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CHAPTER XII 



MIDDLE TENNESSEE 




FTER our return from this raid, we 
rejoined Bragg's army near Mur- 
freesboro, Tenn. ; and Generals 
Wheeler and Forrest took all the cavalry 
and made a raid on Fort Donelson. 
Against General Forrest's judgment, Gen- 
eral Wheeler, the senior in command, de- 
cided to attack the garrison. With heavy 
loss, we were repulsed, and retired without 
accomplishing anything. 

Our next move was to join the forces of 
General Van Dorn in Middle Tennessee; 
and on March 5, 1863, we surrounded 
Thompson's Station, on the Louisville and 
Nashville Railroad, and, after a sharp fight, 
captured the garrison and 1,306 men, in- 
cluding the two commanders, Colonels Co- 
burn and W. R. Shaf ter. The latter was a 
conspicuous general in the Spanish- Ameri- 
can War of 1898. 

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We spent March fighting detachments in 
and around Franklin, Tenn. On March 25 
we captured Brentwood and destroyed the 
bridge over Harpeth River between Frank- 
lin and Nashville. 

Here I had another close call. The Un- 
ion Army had sent out a large force after 
us, and had succeeded in getting between a 
part of our command and the river, forcing 
us to ford at a point extremely dangerous. 
We were fighting as we ran, and were com- 
pelled to jump our horses from a high em- 
bankment into the river. My horse carried 
me under to a great depth ; but he was not 
disabled, and, by great exertion, came up 
and swam across. Some of our men were 
drowned, and many were shot by the enemy 
as the mass of men and horses struggled in 
the river. 

I had read, as a boy, the thrilling story 
of Israel Putnam's reckless ride over a 
precipice, but I never dreamed that I would 
one day be forced to the same extremity. 

In the hard school of war I learned that, 
under the stress of great danger, a man, in 

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mind and body, will perform the unbeliev- 
able. 

After making our get-away from Har- 
peth River, on April 10, we had another 
fight at Franklin, Tenn., capturing the en- 
emy's wagon train, two cannon, and a num- 
ber of prisoners. We then returned to 
Bragg's army in the vicinity of Chatta- 
nooga. 



../^ 






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CHAPTER XIII 



PURSUIT OF THE STREIGHT RAIDERS 




ATE in April came news that the Un- 
ion Army around Corinth was mak- 
ing a demonstration into North 
Alabama. 

Forrest's genius had already become 
known, and he was sent with 800 men to 
uncover the design of the enemy. 

When we arrived in the vicinity of Tus- 
cumbia, Ala., we found a part of General 
Roddy's Confederate command fighting and 
retreating before the advancing enemy from 
near Cherokee. 

On reaching Tuscumbia, Forrest sent out 
scouts in all directions to ascertain the pur- 
pose of the enemy. Upon the reports of 
these scouts, Forrest understood the gen- 
eral plan of the foe. 

Col. A. D. Streight, in command of an 
Indiana regiment of infantry, was to raid 

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Wife of Thomas D. Duncan 



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through Alabama and on to Rome, Ga., cut- 
ting the railway and destroying factories. 

But — alas for the plan! — General For- 
rest did not remain in Middle Tennessee, 
where they had placed him. 

Learning from a citizen that Streight's 
column had passed the little town of Mount 
Hope, only a few miles from Tuscumbia, on 
the evening of April 29, Forrest ordered 
every available man with a good horse to 
prepare for the pursuit. With 500 of his 
own men and 800 from Roddy's command, 
he began the chase with 1,300 men and with 
Streight twelve hours ahead. 

Forrest's calculation was that Streight 
would camp at the base of Sand Mountain 
and begin the ascent early the next day, and 
so it was. Just at sunrise our advance 
guard came on the enemy's pickets. The 
army was breaking camp as we came into 
view, and a chorus of 2,000 braying mule 
voices greeted us, as Streight's men were 
mounted on mules for mountain climbing. 

We were a little too late to strike the en- 
emy in camp according to plan, but a hasty 
and too eager company of our advance 

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rushed in and fired on the rear of the col- 
umn; whereupon the enemy turned and 
fought back, holding us off until he got his 
force on top of the mountain. Then he 
placed his men back in ambush and drew 
us into a deadly trap. In a rushing move- 
ment we were surprised and knocked out of 
all formation. It was the only time in my 
entire service of four years with Forrest 
that I ever saw him purturbed. He tried 
with all possible boldness to stem the tide; 
but our men had ridden hard all night, and 
they simply could not meet the advantage 
and the odds of fresh troops. 

After losing a number of men, we ''stood 
not upon the order of our going,'' but re- 
coiled from the front of flame; and on our 
retreat the enemy pursued us so closely that 
we lost two of our field pieces. Our retreat 
so enraged General Forrest that he was as 
ferocious and wild as a lion. He was so 
harsh in his treatment of the young captain 
of artillery on account of the loss of his guns 
that he afterwards, at Spring Hill, Tenn., 
attacked and shot General Forrest. 

After this repulse, we brought up the re- 

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mainder of our troops and turned the pur- 
suit and kept it up so vigorously that they 
soon began to try to get away from us, and 
we pressed the running fight until we put 
these 2,000 raiders out of business. 

After this fight of Day's Gap, on Sand 
Mountain, followed that long and relentless 
pursuit of Streight and his men, which 
must forever stand as one of the most dar- 
ing and spectacular exploits of. military his- 
tory. Forrest had picked 500 men for this 
great running fight with a foe 2,000 strong. 

Our fight was, of course, with the rear 
guard, for our leader never permitted us to 
be drawn into a general engagement. 

When the enemy would set traps for us, 
Forrest would invariably discover them and 
shell the ambush out and keep up his nag- 
ging, sleep-destroying pursuit day and 
night. 

It was in the course of this pursuit that 
we came to the deep, high-banked waters 
of Black Warrior Creek and found the en- 
emy on the opposite bank and the bridge in 
flames. 

Near the burning bridge lived the Widow 

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Sanson, whose fifteen-year-old daughter, 
Emma Sanson, made her name immortal in 
the records of the Southern Confederacy 
and in the sacred, tear-stained archives of 
Alabama. She it was who rode on For- 
rest's horse behind him through the zone of 
danger to point out a little-known and iso- 
lated ford where she had seen her mother's 
cows cross when the summer waters were 
low. By her timely help Forrest was en- 
abled to pursue the enemy's column in its 
last stretch of the long march to Rome. 

For this intelligent, fearless, and patri- 
otic service, her State, after the war, granted 
to Emma Sanson a section of land and in 
1907 erected a monument to her memory at 
Gadsden. 

Before Streight's column reached Rome, 
Ga., Forrest sent a courier around the fly- 
ing foe and called upon the city officials to 
raise a force and seize the bridge and either 
hold or burn it. The response was prompt, 
and the Union commander found a hostile 
reception awaiting him and the bridge bar- 
ricaded and guarded with cannon. 

Our advance arrived within striking dis- 

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tance of the enemy's rear just as he received 
the word that the city had refused to surren- 
der, and so the really courageous Union 
commander, after reaching the edge of his 
goal, surrendered his nearly 2,000 soldiers 
to Forrest's little band of less than 500. 

With chagrin and humiliation. Colonel 
Streight learned too late the strength of the 
column that had harassed his troops over so 
many hills, and then compelled them to stack 
arms. 

While I was but a unit of that swift band, 
my experience brought to my understand- 
ing the awful tragedy of war and taught 
me the strange truth that the will and the 
genius of the commander are the prepon- 
derant power of every bannered host, the 
fineness of a brain cell, the courage of a 
heart, the coolness of a nerve, outweighing 
the mass of legions. 

Soon after this we marched back to 
Bragg's army in Tennessee. We were sent 
out on scout service toward Nashville, and 
fought a number of minor engagements, in- 
cluding those of Tullahoma and Shelbyville, 
Tenn. After a little wjiile, we joined Wheel- 

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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

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er's command; and our activities were then 
directed against the forces of Generals 
Wilder and Stanley, who were making 
strenuous efforts to cut the Western and 
Alantic Railroad line, Bragg's line of com- 
munication. 




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CHAPTER XIV 



CHICKAMAUGA 




If^OLLOWING soon after these scattered 
raids came the great battle of Chick- 
amauga, which is too well known to 
the world to need comment from me. 

Forrest's cavalry virtually opened the 
battle of Chickamauga; and after the field 
seemed won by the Confederates, General 
Forrest climbed a tree and observed the con- 
fusion with which the Union lines were re- 
tiring. Upon this knowledge, he boldly 
urged General Bragg to press on after the 
foe, and pressed him so vehemently and so 
undiplomatically that, it is said. General 
Bragg severely reprimanded him for what 
Bragg considered an undue interference 
with matters under the authority of his su- 
perior. The story further runs that Gen- 
eral Forrest's attitude, following the inci- 
dent, was such that a duel would have re- 
sulted had it not been for General Bragg's 

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cool disregard of General Forrest's desire to 
bring the matter to a violent conclusion. It 
is a regrettable fact that this breach be- 
tween two of the South's ablest and noblest 
sons was never healed. 

I believe that time and impartial history 
have proved that if General Bragg had fol- 
lowed the advice of Forrest at Chickamauga, 
victory, so far as human vision can tell, 
would have been with the Confederates. 




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CHAPTER XV 



WEST TENNESSEE 




FTER the battle of Chickamauga, For- 
rest, with 300 picked men, turned 
toward Mississippi to begin the re- 
cruiting for his third army. By December 
1 we had quite an army of raw recruits, but 
they were poorly mounted and many of 
them unarmed. Up to this time Forrest 
had depended upon his enem»y for arms and 
supplies ; and as there was no foe in imme- 
diate striking distance, he determined to 
march through North Mississippi into West 
Tennessee, then entirely in the hands of the 
enemy and guarded by a large army, with 
strong garrisons at Corinth, Miss.; Mem- 
phis, Bolivar, and Union City, Tenn. Gen- 
eral Hurlbut, the commander of the depart- 
ment, had announced that if Forrest should 
return he would surely be captured. 

About December 1, 1863, we left Holly 
Springs, Miss., on our northward march. 

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Making the greatest possible display of his 
force, at the proper time Forrest pushed 
across the Memphis and Charleston Rail- 
road, left a small force of Mississippi troops 
to threaten Memphis and Collierville, and 
moved rapidly on with his main body, reach- 
ing Jackson, Tenn., in the very center of 
Hurlbut's net, before the enemy knew that 
Forrest was back in his old haunts. Oper- 
ating in and around Jackson through De- 
cember, we added about 2,000 men to our 
force and collected many beef cattle. The 
enemy, now realizing that this force was 
commanded by# Forrest, never sought to mo- 
lest us within our limited area, but awaited 
the time for our get-away, confident of be- 
ing able to crush and capture us. The Un- 
ion forces had already captured John Mor- 
gan, and they now felt that Forrest was 
within their grasp. 

On January 1, 1864, we began our move- 
ment southward, threatening in all direc- 
tions, but moving toward the Hatchie River 
at a point above Bolivar, Tenn. The en- 
emy had failed to find a boat which we had 
sunk in this stream. At Jack's Creek we 

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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 



encountered the Bolivar force, and easily 
pushed it back, allowing our main column to 
pass on to the crossing place on the Hatchie. 

Forrest posted a regiment in front of the 
Bolivar army, and gave them orders to fight 
to the last if necessary, to hold the enemy 
until we could cross the river. It took us 
all night. The enemy had made a desperate 
fight with our rear guard just at sundown, 
but withdrew their line at night and re- 
ported to their commander that they had 
hemmed us in a bend of the stream where 
we had no means of crossing. They had sent 
a regiment across the river, and it had gone 
into camp in a cornfield about a mile from 
our crossing place. 

Forrest had distributed his 300 veterans 
among the new troops in order to instruct 
them as to what was expected of them. 

After we were safely across the Hatchie 
followed one of those daring feats of our 
General so difficult to understand from a 
description in cold type — so peculiar to his 
originality on the battle field. Instead of 
hurling a heavy force against the regiment 
camping in the cornfield, he attacked them 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



with his picked escort of eighty men, scat- 
tering them to give the impression of a full 
regiment. With ten special captains giving 
loud commands, as if company after com- 
pany were moving to the attack, our thin 
line dashed upon the sleeping foe in the 
darkness just before daylight and put the 
entire regiment to flight mainly with our 
six-shooters. Forrest did not wish to be 
burdened with prisoners just at this time, 
and so he planned to frighten this regiment 
out of the pathway of his army and secure 
as many of their horses as possible. The 
plan succeeded, and we lost only three men, 
one of them being the gallant ''Nathan 
Boone,'' commander of the escort. 

Many of our men were given good mounts 
from the number captured. My horse was 
slightly wounded, and I exchanged him for 
a large, fine animal which I named "Hatch,'' 
''in memory" of a Union colonel command- 
ing a regiment at Bolivar. 

Our difficulties grew with our progress. 
An army of 30,000 men, divided into four 
divisions, was pressing us on all sides. We 
had to cross Wolf River and the Memphis 

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and Charleston Railroad, and our force did 
not exceed 5,000 or 6,000 men, many of them 
neither armed nor mounted. We were bur- 
dened with a drove of beef cattle, our supply 
wagons, and artillery. General Forrest's 
plans were known neither to the enemy nor 
to his own men, and all we could guess was 
that he would do the unexpected. 

Then, while threatening a crossing of the 
railroad between Collierville and LaGrange, 
Tenn., with a swiftness that was incredible, 
our main column pushed out toward Ross- 
ville and Memphis, as if to attack the latter. 
We crossed the Wolf River near Rossville, 
putting the guard to flight and reflooring 
the partially wrecked bridge with fence 
rails. We then dispersed the force between 
us and the railroad, and defeated the divi- 
sion which opposed us at the railroad, thus, 
with the loss of not more than thirty men, 
escaping the wrathful meshes of a force five 
times our number. 

It has been said that ''comparisons are 
odious,'' but it is a living truth that values 
exist only in comparison; and the military 
student cannot fail to retrace the immortal 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, 
Frederick, and Napoleon in the lightning- 
like, yet perfectly timed, movements of this 
untrained, unpolished genius of war, now 
known to history as Nathan Bedford For- 
rest. 

The enemies of General Forrest were the 
first to recognize his great and dangerous 
ability as West Pointer after West Pointer 
toppled before his flying column. 

After this raid it is said that General 
Sherman, more than any of the other Union 
commanders, saw and appreciated the dan- 
ger of this untutored captain of the Confed- 
eracy, and that he openly declared that the 
commander who could vanquish or capture 
Forrest would be made a major general in 
addition to receiving a reward of fifty thou- 
sand dollars. 



% V \^ ^^ 



•^^^5 



^ 



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CHAPTER XVI 



GEN. "SOOEY" SMITH 



^HE first to try for the Sherman reward 
was Gen. ^^Sooey'' Smith, a West 
Pointer and a brave soldier. 

After the return from our raid of 1864, 
our command was scattered from Okolona 
to West Point, Miss., for the purpose of re- 
cruiting and organizing for a greater cam- 
paign; but while we were thus scattered, 
General Smith pounced upon us with a 
choice brigade of well-armed and well- 
equipped soldiers. 

Of course General Forrest had out recon- 
noitering parties at all times to forestall a 
possible surprise, and it was while out with 
one of these parties that I had one of the 
most thrilling experiences of my entire serv- 
ice. We had been informed by a citizen 
sheriff as to the location of a command of 
hostile soldiers. Before going with this 
sheriff to a point from which he said we 

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could see into the Union camp, he invited us 
to rest and feed our horses in a secluded 
thicket where he had hidden his own stock. 
He did not know that his negro caretaker 
had deserted to the enemy, but such was the 
case; and while we were enjoying our rest, 
we were suddenly attacked and almost sur- 
rounded. When the sheriff saw the situ- 
ation, he begged us not to fire on the intrud- 
ers, in fear of the possible consequence to 
the community, and so we saved ourselves 
in flight as best we could. I was so closely 
pressed by a trooper, firing at me at close 
range, that I could not mount my horse ; and 
in some way, not clear to me, I escaped into 
the woods, followed by a shower of bullets 
which I suppose I outran. My good horse 
^'Hatch" was gone, and, with him, the brace 
of six-shooters which I had captured from 
Major Phillips before the evacuation of Cor- 
inth. 

With a heavy heart, I left my hiding place 
at sunset, and, with all possible haste, con- 
centrated my thought and energies in an 
effort to reach some citizen who would fur- 
nish me a mount that I might take word of 

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the approaching enemy to my command. 
With but little delay, I succeeded in secur- 
ing a beautiful, but blind, little horse. With 
minute directions from his owner as to my 
route to Okolona, I set out ; and as the enemy 
had gone into camp for the night, I out- 
stripped him and gave the news first to the 
detachment at Okolona and then to General 
Forrest, who, with the main force, was fur- 
ther on toward West Point. Whether or not 
General Forrest had previously formed his 
plan in anticipation of an attack, we knew 
not; but its execution was as swift as if it 
had been slated in advance, instructing the 
Okolona force to fight and slowly fall back 
upon the main column, lying along a creek 
near West Point. This creek was a low, 
sluggish stream ; and at this time its swollen 
waters were covering the adjacent bottom 
lands, forming a wide marsh, spanned by a 
single road and a narrow bridge, making a 
new-world Areola for this new Napoleon of 
the Confederacy. A fine decoy had been the 
Okolona retreating troops, as they had 
brought General Smith's army to the exact 

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spot where General Forrest had desired to 
meet it. 

On February 20 the enemy lined up for 
battle and attacked our troops near the Tib- 
bee Creek. The fight was fast and furious 
at the beginning. The enemy could not un- 
derstand the sudden resistance after having 
chased the Okolona column so successfully. 

Forrest held his veteran soldiers and his 
artillery in reserve until the enemy was well 
within his trap. To us it looked at one time 
as though our leader had made a mistake, 
as our advanced line was pressed so vigor- 
ously that it fell back in confusion. General 
Forrest in person rallied the retreating Con- 
federates ; and after a fierce rebuke to some 
of his fleeing soldiers, he lined up his escort 
and commanded that the troops follow this 
company. This was the word for a full at- 
tack, in which we turned the tide of battle 
and sent the enemy staggering back on his 
reserve. Forrest did not give the enemy 
time to reform, but pressed on into his 
broken ranks with such vigor that the Union 
Army was scattered out of all organization 
and fled from the field, utterly confused. 

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We kept up the chase until the enemy 
made a stand at a hill just north of Okolona 
on the Pontotoc Road. The commander 
massed his men on a steep and rugged hill- 
side and gave us a hard, game fight. Jef- 
frey Forrest, a brother of our General, was 
killed here on February 24, and this sad in- 
cident so aroused Forrest that he seemed to 
lose all sense of personal danger. At the 
head of McCullough's regiment, he charged 
the enemy from his position, and got so far 
in advance of his own men that we found 
him in the midst of the Union rear guard, 
fighting off his enemies from all sides. Col- 
onel McCullough hastened to his assistance 
and extricated him from his perilous posi- 
tion. After this fight the enemy made no 
further effort to hold us in check, but gave 
all his thought and energy to a rapid retreat 
back to Memphis. 






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CHAPTER XVII 



FORT PILLOW 




N March 1, 1864, we began another in- 
vasion of West Tennessee ; but as the 
active troops in that section had been 
reduced to a few strong garrisons, we did 
not meet any serious opposition until we 
came to the vicinity of Fort Pillow, just 
above Memphis. Pillow was garrisoned 
with negro soldiers commanded by white 
officers. This place being considered almost 
impregnable, it was used as a recruiting sta- 
tion and a supply base. 

Up to that time the Union commanders 
had looked upon Forrest as being only a cav- 
alry raider and running fighter; but, in 
truth, his command was mounted infantry, 
with two full batteries of artillery, and at 
this time it was composed of veteran troops. 
The enemy had too much faith in the im- 
pregnability of the fort and too little regard 
for the genius of N. B. Forrest. 

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There has been so much misrepresenta- 
tion regarding the capture of Fort Pillow 
and it was, at the time, such a football of 
prejudice that I think the truth should be 
told by an unbiased statement of the facts. 

Our army approached Fort Pillow about 
the 12th of April and drove in the outpost 
guards, and, after a sharp fight with the 
outside defenders, we forced the enemy be- 
hind the fortifications. The Union Army 
had a transport boat and one or more gun- 
boats in the river, and could fear no attack 
from that side of the fort. Our commander, 
knowing the danger of a direct assault and 
the heavy loss of life that would be sure to 
follow, sent in a flag of truce demanding ca- 
pitulation, making it plain that he had come 
to capture the fort and assuring the defend- 
ers that the terms to be granted would be 
honorable. He warned them, however, that 
if his men had to scale the walls of the fort 
he could not guarantee full protection to the 
negro soldiers in view of the Southern white 
man's strong prejudice against the colored 
man as a soldier at that period of the war. 

There have been many wild stories con- 

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cocted about this fight; but aside from the 
outcropping of natural race prejudice, 
which is dangerous enough under normal, 
peaceful conditions of life and which had 
been blown to its fiercest fiame by the breath 
of war, there was nothing brutal or savage. 

Just before our flag of truce went for- 
ward, one of our regiments slipped into a 
ravine just above the fort, where they were 
safe from the enemy's fire and from which 
position they could enfilade the fort and boat 
landing. 

Soon after the fight the report was cur- 
rent that this regiment had been moved into 
position while the flag of truce was being 
respected. 

Another story that gained circulation, 
and that has believers to this day, was to the 
effect that our command murdered all the 
occupants of the fort; and that fight in 
which our army took all the hazards of a 
difficult and dangerous attack was widely 
called the ''massacre of Fort Pillow.'' 

After the war, a committee composed of 
Northern men investigated these charges 
against General Forrest and his command, 

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and, upon all information gathered, the ac- 
cused were, by the decision of the committee, 
cleared of the charge. 

In every army there are bad men, and of 
such we may expect fiendish conduct when 
the business of the best of men is to kill. 

When we fought it out at Fort Pillow and 
were forced to scale the walls and found the 
negro troops defending the place with death- 
dealing weapons in their hands, I am sure 
that, in the flame of prejudice and passion, 
there were some unnecessary killings; but 
they were the exceptions and formed no part 
of any plan of the Confederate commander. 
Neither did they reflect the will and spirit 
of the mass of his soldiers. 

A great many of the panic-stricken ne- 
groes ran toward the river, and some were 
drowned by jumping into the water in an 
effort to reach the transport, which in alarm 
was pulling away from the shore. In the 
stampede there were many who paid no at- 
tention when they were called upon to halt, 
and this gave our men the right under the 
rules of war to shoot. 



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CHAPTER XVIII 



A PERSONAL SORROW 




FTER my return from this fight, it 
was my lot to undergo the saddest 
experience of my war life. 
My brother, one year my junior, had just 
joined the command, when we went with a 
scouting party toward the railroad and met 
a small party of Union soldiers. It was the 
first time my brother had been on the firing 
line. He and I were on the extreme left of 
the line on the edge of a road, in touch with 
each other, and we received the first fire 
from the enemy. He was killed instantly 
and never spoke, but looked straight at me, 
with a silent understanding reflected in his 
eyes, and I caught him as he fell. The ball 
that killed him struck near his heart and 
passed through his body. I wrapped his 
body in a blanket and carried it sixty miles 
until I reached the main column. Then 
Gen. S. D. Lee furnished me an ambulance, 

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and I carried the body to Pontotoc, Miss., 
for burial. After the war I placed a monu- 
ment over the grave of this beloved brother 
and youthful soldier. 

We had always been as twins, being so 
nearly the same age, and his tragic and pa- 
thetic passing from life left in my heart a 
burning scar which the long years, with 
their submerging floods of joy and sorrow, 
have never wiped out. 

This tragedy also left within me a ques- 
tion which time has never answered: Was 
it by unguided chance or the immutable de- 
cree of an unknown Fate that I was per- 
mitted to live through fifty-two battles — to 
survive every kind of danger to which a sol- 
dier may be subjected — while this boy by 
my side, found swift death in his first battle 
line? Only the Great Commander of all life 
knows the deep secret of this sad disparity. 
Speaking from the earthly standpoint from 
which we judge the tragedies of this world, 
I was the favored one, as I stood unscathed 
beside the crumpling body of my beloved 
brother on that far-distant day, now nearly 
sixty years gone ; but when the light eternal 

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shall unveil the secrets of this fleeting ex- 
istence, perchance I shall learn that it was 
a stern Fate that, on that eventful morning, 
left me the long, long road to travel, while 
the gentle soul of that boy was borne from 
the spot of his patriotic sacrifice, to the re- 
wards that are promised, on wings far 
swifter than the bullet which dissolved the 
functions of his bodily life. 



>i..-^%«S^,_^ 



w-' 



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CHAPTER XIX 



BATTLE OF BRICE'S CROSS-ROADS 



N the beginning of the spring of 1864 
it became very necessary that the 
granaries of South Mississippi and 
Alabama should be carefully guarded 
against a raid from the Union forces, these 
sections being absolutely essential to the 
sustenance of the Confederate armies. The 
task of protecting this land of plenty was 
assigned to General Forrest. 

When General Sherman was pressing 
back the Confederate Army under General 
Joseph E. Johnston, he told his people at 
Washington that they must keep General 
Forrest from following his rear; also that 
the crops of South Mississippi and Ala- 
bama should be destroyed. 

Accordingly, the Union commander at 
Memphis, Tenn., was ordered to assemble 
the largest possible force and place it under 

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an able commander, so that Forrest could 
be permanently disposed of. 

The force, when assembled on June 1, 
1864, consisted of 3,500 cavalry, under two 
veteran commanders, Grierson and War- 
ring, and 4,500 infantry, under McMillen, 
Hogue, and Bouton, the latter commanding 
a regiment of negroes. This army carried 
250 wagons and twenty pieces of artillery. 

The supreme command was given to Gen. 
Samuel D. Sturgis, an experienced warrior 
and brave fighter. 

To meet this force, General Forrest had 
about 5,000 mounted troops, with two bat- 
teries of artillery — Morton's and Rice's. 

The Federal Army left Memphis on June 
1 for Ripley, Miss. Upon reaching that 
point, they halted and sent a cavalry force 
east to Hatchie River, and circulated the re- 
port that they intended to strike the Mobile 
and Ohio Railroad at Corinth, Rienzi, or 
Booneville, and then advance south or go 
east and cover General Sherman's rear 
while he was pressing Johnston back 
through Georgia. 

Of course this was done to mislead For- 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



rest, hoping that he would throw his force 
as far north as Corinth, leaving the enemy 
time to march his force to Brice's Cross- 
Roads, in which position he would block the 
Confederates and force them out through 
North Alabama, leaving open to Sturgis the 
rich country of South Mississippi and Ala- 
bama, which he so earnestly desired to 
reach. But Forrest never reached conclu- 
sions upon appearances, especially when he 
had reasons for believing that appearances 
were being made to deceive. On the 8th of 
June his command was strung out between 
Baldwyn, Booneville, Rienzi, and Corinth, 
Miss., as he was not yet certain as to what 
his foe contemplated in the invasion of this 
territory. It was naturally expected that 
some new tactics would be put forth by the 
new Union commander. 

General Forrest came to our command at 
Baldwyn, and called for a reliable squad of 
four or five scouts who knew the country 
through the Hatchie Hills. I was one of 
the number furnished, and the General 
called us before him and told us that the 
Union commander was circulating the re- 

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:iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiH 

port that he was crossing the Hatchie River 
at Kellum's Mill, and that they were going 
to Corinth, Miss., as soon as their infantry 
and artillery came up. Forrest told us that 
he wanted positive and exact information 
on this point, and that we must go until we 
could secure it ; that we must not come back 
with a report that some one had told us so 
and so, but that we must go until we could 
see the enemy and know as a fact that they 
were there in force as represented. 

Under these exacting instructions, we set 
forth, and reached the vicinity of the mill 
about dark. We went through the woods 
after we had passed the picket post, and 
carefully approached the miller's house that 
stood on the hill overlooking the river. 

It was late at night when we reached the 
house; but our pilot was well acquainted 
with the family, and they readily told us 
that the enemy had a pontoon bridge across 
the river, and that at sundown of that even- 
ing there was a brigade of cavalry on each 
side of the stream ; but as General Forrest 
had told us to go until we could see for our- 
selves, we mounted and rode down to the 

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bridge. We felt sure that we could ride in 
among the enemy and secure our informa- 
tion without betraying our presence if we 
had no mishap. In case we were discovered, 
we could fire on any one attacking us, and 
in the confusion and the darkness we could 
escape. But when we reached the bridge, 
there were neither soldiers nor horses to be 
found, though there were visible evidences 
of the very recent presence of a large body 
of horsemen on the ground. 

The Union troopers had evidently left at 
nightfall, and had gone to Ripley to join 
their main column for the march toward 
Brice's Cross-Roads. As soon as our cap- 
tain made this discovery, he sent me back to 
Booneville to tell General Forrest what was 
transpiring, and that the captain and the 
other scouts would follow and endeavor to 
overtake the enemy and report later the 
number of the different organizations. 

I left Kellum Mill about midnight of June 
8, had a hard and lonely ride, and reached 
Booneville about noon of the 9th, almost ex- 
hausted, as was my horse. I found General 
Forrest occupying an old warehouse as 

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iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

headquarters, and reported to him. He 
asked me several pointed questions, and, as 
soon as my message was delivered, he dis- 
missed me and told me to take nourishment 
and rest — an order which I obeyed very 
punctually. 

Before I got out of the building I heard 
the General issuing orders for immediate 
preparation for marching. 

At this date our forces were located as 
follows : 

BelFs Brigade was at Rienzi, twenty-five 
miles from Brice's Cross-Roads. 

Rucker's Brigade, with Morton's and 
Rice's Batteries, was at Booneville, eighteen 
miles from Brice's Cross-Roads. 

The brigade of Lyon and Johnston was 
at Baldwyn, six miles from Brice's Cross- 
Roads. 

General Forrest had instructed all com- 
manders to be in readiness to march on 
Brice's Cross-Roads at daylight on the 
morning of June 10. He knew that the en- 
emy heavily outnumbered him, and that 
General Sturgis was bending every effort to 
outmarch him to that point in order that he 

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might force the Confederates to attack at 
a great disadvantage. 

It had been raining for some time, and on 
the night of June 9 there was almost a del- 
uge. 

Late in the afternoon of the 9th I was un- 
able to locate my company, as I had left it 
at Baldwyn ; so I rode out toward Blackland 
and secured lodging in a farmhouse that be- 
longed to a former comrade, and had a good 
supper and a comfortable night of rest. I 
found that General Lyon, of the Kentucky 
Brigade, was spending the night under the 
same kindly roof. 

At daylight of the 10th everything in 
Forrest's command was on the move. The 
clouds lifted and the day grew intensely hot. 

The Union commander, evidently feeling 
that he had the situation well in hand, was 
not so zealous in getting all of his command 
to the Cross-Roads. 

The enemy camped on the night of the 9th 
of June at Stub's farm, nine miles from the 
battle field, while the bulk of our force was 
twenty miles away. Sturgis sent forward 
his two brigades of cavalry and took posses- 

145 

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iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii^ 

sion of the Cross-Roads, throwing forward 
a strong force on the Baldwyn and Guntown 
Road. I marched with General Lyon's force 
until we met General Forrest with his es- 
cort, and then I fell in with the escort. We 
marched rapidly until we struck the Union 
pickets about three miles out on the Bald- 
wyn Road. These we pressed back until we 
came up on Warring's Brigade, posted be- 
hind a rail fence around a small field of 
corn. One organization of this command 
was armed with Colts' repeating rifles, the 
most dangerous weapon the war had devel- 
oped up to that time. Forrest, with only 
about 800 of his men at hand and facing 
3,500 men, knew the danger of bringing on 
a fight. The units of his army were scat- 
tered far back on the muddy roads, moving 
with all possible swiftness to the field. 
Never did the infinite boldness of Forrest 
stand out more startlingly than at that mo- 
ment of danger. He dismounted every 
trooper and ordered their horses tied to the 
trees in our rear. Then he strung out our 
thin line as far as possible, so that the en- 
emy's line would not overlap us, and we 

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marched boldly up to the opening and began 
a rapid fire with our rifles. By this front 
we completely deceived the enemy and held 
him to his first line until we were reinforced 
with a part of our army. With this our 
force was increased to about half the num- 
ber facing us, and General Forrest now felt 
that he must force the fighting in order to 
defeat the cavalry before the Union infan- 
try could come up. Meantime, General 
Sturgis was urging his infantry through the 
intense heat. As the foot troops arrived 
almost exhausted, the Union cavalry was 
being pressed back, and Forrest's artillery 
and BelFs Brigade were swinging into view 
to reinforce the Confederates. 

Forrest then resolved to stake the day on 
a charge against the enemy's infantry be- 
fore it could gain time to rest and while 
their cavalry was falling back. 

We were then instructed to take advan- 
tage of the thick undergrowth and conceal 
our advance as much as possible until very 
close to the enemy and then rush the line 
with our six-shooters. 

Forrest announced that he would take one 

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end of our line and Rueker the other, and 
that we could not fail. We believed it, be- 
cause he had never failed. Dismounting 
and drawing their pistols, Forrest and 
Rueker placed themselves in the line of bat- 
tle and went forward with us. As we 
moved, there was not a word spoken in the 
throng — only a tense and anxious hurry- 
ing, as much as was possible in such a 
thicket. As we advanced, we were search- 
ing with anxious eyes every turn and undu- 
lation of the landscape to discover the en- 
emy's line, when suddenly the long, massed 
column, only a few feet in front of us, rose 
from a prostrate position to their knees and 
delivered in our faces one of the most wither- 
ing rifle fires that our men had ever encoun- 
tered. We were almost close enough to be 
powder-burned by the blaze from their long 
Springfield rifles, and the fire staggered us 
into a momentary confusion; but Forrest 
was there, and a single blast of his clarion 
voice was worth five thousand men in that 
vortex of danger and doubt. We were fight- 
ing an enemy that had two to our one, and 
nothing but our confidence that, in some 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



way, Forrest would lead us to victory, could 
have sustained us. His escort moved as one 
man with him, and, with revolvers drawn, 
we charged the line of infantry before they 
could reload. Every man in our line had 
from five to ten shots, and we made them 
count. They broke in confusion and got 
away pellmell, but not before we had riddled 
them unmercifully. I never saw in any bat- 
tle of the war as many arms and legs ampu- 
tated as were lost at the field hospital at 
Brice's Cross-Roads. It seemed that every 
pistol ball found its human mark. If it did 
not kill, it pierced an arm or a leg. 

When the Union commander brought up 
his brigade of negro troops which had been 
held in reserve, he told the blacks to form 
in line and allow the defeated white troops 
to pass to their rear, and that they would re- 
form and support them ; but about the time 
this arrangement was made, Barteau's reg- 
iment, which had been sent around to fall 
upon the rear of the Union column, made 
its appearance, and our artillery began to 
rake the retreating white troops with grape 

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and canister. The brigade of blacks took to 
their heels without firing a shot and scat- 
tered through the woods like wild deer. 

After the war, I knew an old negro in 
Corinth who was in the battle of Brice's 
Cross-Roads, and I asked him one day if he 
ran away from the battle field. He replied : 
''No, boss, I didn't run ; I flew.'' 

A cold appraisement of this fight shows 
it to have been one of the most remarkable 
of all military history. With a force but lit- 
tle more than half as large as his enemy, 
this strangely gifted fighter of the Confed- 
eracy shattered a trained army of 8,000 
men, and chased the remnant back to its 
base, forcing it to a speed seldom equaled 
in the wildest panics of war. The panoplied 
and militant host of Sturgis consumed nine 
days in the march from Memphis to Brice's 
Cross-Roads, but, with Forrest on its trail, 
what was left of that host covered the same 
distance on the return in two nights and one 
day. 

We captured 250 wagons and ambulances, 
eighteen pieces of artillery, 5,000 stands of 
small arms, 500,000 rounds of small-arms 

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ammunition, and all the enemy's baggage 
and military stores. 

But, notwithstanding the great victory, 
this battle took heavy toll from our ranks. 

"Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green, 
That host with its banners at sunset was seen. 
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown, 
That host on the morrow lay scattered and strewn." 




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CHAPTER XX 



HARRISBURG AND TUPELO, MISS. 




^HE next raid into our territory was 
commanded by Gen. A. J. Smith, a 
West Point soldier. 

The department commander at Memphis 
had collected another special army to over- 
throw Forrest and his troopers and to gain 
control of the only territory then entirely 
open to the armies of the Confederacy. 

In view of the many disastrous attempts 
to crush Forrest, the Union officials col- 
lected a large force of all arms, and gave the 
command to a general who was expected to 
take no chances of defeat. About the first 
of July, 1864, this army moved out from the 
vicinity of Memphis, proceeding with great 
caution over the main highway so recently 
traveled by the army of Sturgis. 

Forrest was acquainted with the man 
with whom he had to deal, and advised with 
his superiors as to the safest plan of defense. 

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My understanding at the time was that 
Gen. Stephen D. Lee had been sent by the 
authorities at Richmond to support Forrest, 
with all available troops that could be spared 
from the other theaters of the war. 

As General Lee was the senior and rank- 
ing officer, of course he was in command of 
the Confederate forces; and while he evi- 
dently desired General Forrest to act with 
all possible freedom, yet, however generous 
the superior commander, the question of 
military ethics necessarily made for both 
commanders a delicate and sensitive situ- 
ation, which could not but hamper the judg- 
ment and the action of General Forrest, for, 
thus subordinated, his was not the supreme 
responsibility. 

Of course, I, a mere boy, had no touch 
with the source of official information as to 
these grave matters, except through chance 
expressions of those higher up, as to what 
had been discussed in the councils of war. 

At any rate, while the Union column was 
approaching New Albany on the Talla- 
hatchie River, it was freely discussed that 
General Forrest desired to distribute his 

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force among the hills just south of the Talla- 
hatchie at New Albany and strike the Un- 
ion Army on its flank while marching. The 
theory was that, thus surprised, the enemy 
could be beaten in detail, as it would be im- 
possible to mass his attack. 

It was by such tactics that Forrest had 
thus far defeated every force he had met, 
and I personally believe that if he could 
have had his way we would have routed this 
force as we had all others. 

On the other hand, it seems that Gen. S. 
D. Lee thought it best to bring up all possi- 
ble infantry and artillery which could be 
secured from Mobile and Vicksburg and 
mass it for a decisive battle in the vicinity 
of Pontotoc, Miss., forcing the Union Army 
to fight us on ground of our own choosing 
or to make a retreating fight and abandon 
the expedition. 

No doubt this plan would have worked 
admirably but for the fact that General 
Smith discovered the trap and refused to 
walk into it. After threatening Pontotoc, 
he suddenly turned to the left and moved 
toward Tupelo, being well on the way to 

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that place before we were aware of his in- 
tentions. 

On the morning of the 13th of July, For- 
rest began the chase, and we soon came up 
with the rear and captured some wagons 
and a cannon before the enemy could turn 
back and fight. Having only two regiments 
of our command, we could only annoy the 
enemy, as he was trying to reach the rail- 
road by nightfall. Upon reaching the ham- 
let of Harrisburg, some two miles west of 
Tupelo, the Union Army threw up some 
temporary breastworks in the edge of an 
old field or clearing and prepared for a de- 
fense. In my opinion, this was the most 
unfortunate fight in which the command of 
General Forrest ever engaged. We lost 
more men and were more severely repulsed 
than in any other fight. 

After a terrible battle, lasting all day, 
both sides were willing to quit. The Union 
Army was satisfied that they could go no 
further south, and on the morning of the 
15th commenced a retreat toward Memphis, 
Forrest nagging their rear at every step. 

They turned on us at Ellistown, Miss., 

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and we had a sharp fight. Here General 
Forrest was wounded in the foot, and had 
to give up the chase personally. The Union 
Army returned to Memphis, defeated in its 
plan to destroy Forrest and his command 
and to invade the all-important grain fields 
of the Confederacy. 






156 



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CHAPTER XXI 



RAID INTO MEMPHIS 



« 



|j||EEPLY disappointed over the many 
a^ futile and disastrous attempts to 



5s^^ 



vanquish Forrest and his troopers, 
the Union Army headquarters again, about 
the month of August, 1864, assembled a 
formidable army and marched it into Miss- 
issippi, fully determined to crush this bold 
Cavalier of the South. General Forrest was 
fully informed as to the numerical strength 
of his enemy, and he knew that he was so 
outnumbered that his only chance was to 
win by his wits. Indeed, this necessity was 
not new to him, but it had never been so 
great as at that time. With a handful of 
men and a legion of original and brilliant 
ideas, this untaught genius had piled up a 
list of victories which will never cease to be 
the wonder of the military student. 

In that latest crisis and danger to our 
little army and to our cause we, who had so 

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long followed Forrest, knew not what stra- 
tegic plan was being worked out in his 
brain ; but we were one in the thought that 
he would find some way to save the situa- 
tion. How unique and almost unbelievable 
was his plan ! 

When the advance of the blue army had 
been pushed to Oxford, Miss., Forrest in- 
structed General Chalmers, one of his divi- 
sion commanders, to gather all of the force 
that was left and put it in battle array be- 
fore the enemy, and to parry the advance as 
much as possible without bringing on a de- 
cisive engagement. By these tactics the 
Union commander was deceived into looking 
for and preparing for a pitched battle each 
day. 

While the situation rested thus in the bal- 
ance of expectancy, Forrest selected from 
each unit of our army a squad of picked 
men, well mounted and equipped. Placing 
himself at the head of this special troop, 
without a word of explanation, he bade us 
follow him ; and, with hearty obedience and 
blind confidence, we obeyed, grimly ready 
for whatever desperate enterprise awaited 

15« 



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us at our unknown destination. We headed 
toward the west, crossing the Tallahatchie 
River, and then turned northward in the 
direction of Senatobia, Miss., and the Cold 
Water River. All bridges and crossings of 
these rivers and their tributaries had been 
rendered impassable, and we were forced to 
all manner of inventions to get over the 
streams. At one place we made a pontoon 
bridge, with grapevines as the main sup- 
port, and carried the floor planks from a 
barn a half mile distant. 

At daylight on the morning of August 
21 we rode into the suburbs of the city of 
Memphis, Tenn. It was as if we had come 
down out of the sky on winged horses, so 
great was the surprise to Generals Wash- 
burn and Hurlbut; and these commanders, 
by a margin of two minutes, escaped from 
their headquarters in night attire, leaving 
uniforms and paraphernalia of every kind. 
The boldness of the stroke saved us. There 
were enough Union troops in Memphis to 
have surrounded and captured us, but they 
fled to shelter, and we had possession of the 
town for three or four hours. We captured 

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several cannon and a number of prisoners, 
but the swiftness of our mission made it nec- 
essary that we leave all of these behind. 

In leaving the city we fought everything 
that made the slightest show of resistance, 
but there was no organized effort to inter- 
fere with us. 

When we reached the city limits, General 
Forrest returned General Washburn's uni- 
form and other clothing taken from his 
headquarters in the early dawn, and some 
time afterwards General Washburn had'a 
new Confederate uniform made and sent to 
General Forrest. 

This expedition had the desired effect. 
The headquarters knew not what designs 
lay behind the strange and startling raid 
into the very heart of the military govern- 
ment of that department, and the army of 
invasion was hurriedly recalled to protect 
Memphis. 

Thus again had the untutored Forrest, 
with the strategy of a Hannibal or a Fred- 
erick, substituted his wits for guns and sol- 
diers and chased an army with his genius. 

We wended our way back to Mississippi 

160 




Thomas D. Duncan 

At the age of fourteen two years before he rode with 

J^ orrest s famous troop 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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and to our command, men and horses weary, 
worn, sleepy, hungry, and tired, but with 
the happy consciousness that we had van- 
quished the foe from the gates of Oxford 
without the loss of a man. 

"Up the broad valley, fast and far, 
The troubled enemy had sped. 
Up rose the glorious morning star, 
And the mighty host had fled." 



161 
11 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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CHAPTER XXII 



RAID INTO NORTH ALABAMA AND 
MIDDLE TENNESSEE 



N a short while after the Memphis raid 
our commander decided to go east and 
break the line that was furnishing 
Sherman's supplies while on his advance 
into Georgia and the Carolinas. 

About the first of September, 1864, we 
marched east to the Tennessee River, cross- 
ing at Florence and Bainbridge, Ala.; and 
after several small fights and skirmishes, 
we appeared before Athens, Ala., on Sep- 
tember 16, 1864. At this place the Union 
Army had a strong garrison, defended by a 
fort and blockhouses. The latter defense 
was impregnable to the assaults of infantry 
and cavalry, but an easy mark for artillery. 

When we approached this stronghold, 
rain was falling, and I was put forward on 
the skirmish line just before daylight. We 
marched only a short distance before we 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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drew the fire of the enemy. Nothing was 
visible except the quick flashes of flame from 
the guns on either side. We were instructed 
to lie down and hold our position until day- 
light. After a few rounds, both sides de- 
cided to cease firing. 

As the light began to dawn, our line ad- 
vanced and drove the enemy inside his for- 
tifications. 

After a quick survey of the situation, 
General Forrest decided that it would be 
best to try to *^bluff' ' the Union commander. 
Accordingly, he was notified that Forrest's 
full command was at his gates, able and 
ready to overwhelm him, and that he could 
avert a useless sacrifice of life by an imme- 
diate surrender. The plan worked, and the 
fort proper was surrendered, and the men 
walked out and became prisoners. 

In the west side of the town was a large 
blockhouse, with a full regiment as a gar- 
rison. The commanding officer refused to 
surrender, and in response to the demand 
he sent a defiant message, challenging the 
Confederates to come and take the place. 
This officer thought the attackers were only 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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cavalry raiders, without artillery; but his 
enlightenment was not long delayed. Gen- 
eral Forrest ordered Captain Morton to 
bring two guns into action. We placed the 
guns in a street overlooking the fortifica- 
tion. The first shot barely touched the top 
of the fort, and the second shot tore straight 
through the center. Before the gunners 
could reload, a white fiag was run up. We 
had possession of the town and all its de- 
fenders. 

While the details of the surrender were 
being arranged, we heard a train coming in 
from the direction of Decatur. General 
Forrest hurriedly sent Lyon's regiment to 
fall in behind the train on its arrival and 
block its return. It had brought a regiment 
of Union soldiers to reinforce the garrison. 
They jumped from the fiat cars and lined 
up behind a row of cordwood along the rail- 
road. The train hurriedly backed out and 
made its escape. We were lined up on our 
horses, and the enemy began a very harass- 
ing fire, which had a telling effect on men 
and horses. Colonel Kelly, our commander, 
ordered us to dismount and charge the foe 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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from his position behind the cordwood. 
Meanwhile, General Lyon was advancing 
upon the enemy's rear, with his skirmishers 
well in front. The retreat of the Union col- 
umn from our attack was so rapid that it 
ran over Lyon's skirmish line and captured 
it. This skirmish line was in command of 
my boyhood friend, Capt. Henry C. Klyce. 
Further on in these memoirs I shall refer to 
him again. We had this new regiment at 
the mercy of a simultaneous front and rear 
attack, and its position was hopeless. Cap- 
tain Klyce, their prisoner, told the com- 
mander that we had them surrounded ; that 
we had captured all the troops in the town, 
and further resistance was useless. Cap- 
tain Klyce protested against the injustice 
of thus uselessly subjecting the Confederate 
prisoners to the fire of their own men ; but 
the Union commander stated that he would 
not surrender while his men were being 
fired upon, and that he was unwilling to re- 
quire one of his men to go forward to an- 
nounce the desire to surrender. Then Cap- 
tain Klyce volunteered to go forward and 
make the announcement in the face of a 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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brisk musketry fire. He carried a white 
shirt on the point of a bayonet; and, of 
course, our firing ceased as soon as he was 
seen, but not until he had faced the gravest 
danger for the sake of friends and foes. In 
the midst of the brutalities of war it is such 
unselfish and heroic acts as this that sub- 
limate the spirit of battle 



/^tS/l 



V 



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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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CHAPTER XXIII 



SULPHUR TRESTLE, ALA. 




HE capture of the Union Army at Ath- 
ens, Ala., was indeed the fulfillment 
of a great necessity with us. We 
took over a large supply of provisions and 
camp equipment, twenty carloads of cloth- 
ing, a number of horses, several cannon, 
and about 4,000 small arms, with a quantity 
of ammunition for same. 

On the day following the fall of Athens 
we moved against Sulphur Trestle, in Ala- 
bama. At this place the railroad had 
spanned a small stream with a high, covered 
bridge, which was of such consequence to 
the Union Army that a strong fort and gar- 
rison were maintained here, guarded with 
mounted cannon. When General Forrest 
examined the structure, he was satisfied 
that we would have to fight for it. The com- 
mander promptly refused to comply with 
our demand for a surrender. 



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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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There were good positions for our batte- 
ries, but the gunners would be dangerously 
exposed to the fire of the sharpshooters of 
the fort, and the only way to protect them 
was to march an attacking force across an 
open field to a point within range of the 
fort, so that we could direct a continuous 
fire against their loopholes. 

The crossing of that field and the bloody 
results made an impression upon me that 
time cannot efface. In all the fights I had 
engaged in up to that time I had never had 
an uncomfortable foreboding of danger, but 
in that strangely charged hour I had a pre- 
sentiment that I would not get through ; and 
as we rode toward the place where we were 
to dismount for the charge, I confided my 
feeling to my companion and asked him if 
he would be willing to exchange places with 
me in case it should fall to his lot instead of 
mine to hold horses. ( It was the plan of our 
commander that every fourth man in the 
line should hold horses in the rear, while the 
others were charging as infantry.) He 
promised ; but when the show-down came, he 
flickered ; and I went forward as usual, for 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



I had never acted as a horse holder. The 
enemy's artillery was firing at us inces- 
santly; and as we turned the top of a slight 
ridge, Colonel Kelly's horse was killed and 
fell just a few feet behind my position. As 
we cleared the hill and came into full view 
of the fort, we were met with a veritable 
hail of lead and iron. We were charging in 
a run, but men were falling at every step. 
We moved close up and lay down, and kept 
up a continuous fire until our batteries re- 
duced the fort and caused it to surrender. 

Just as we reached the stopping point I 
was in the act of firing, when a ball struck 
my left hand between the first and second 
knuckles. It passed entirely through my 
hand and struck the trigger guard, knock- 
ing the gun violently against my head, and 
I thought for the moment that I had been 
struck by a cannon ball. I was practically un- 
conscious for a few moments ; and when my 
senses returned, I was lying on the ground, 
very sick, my head roaring like a freight 
train, and the wound in my hand bleeding 
profusely. Our battle line was flattened out 
on the ground within fifty yards of the fort. 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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Quite a number in my immediate location 
had been wounded, and one poor fellow 
within a few feet of me was moaning piti- 
fully, when a bullet struck him in the cen- 
ter of the forehead and killed him instantly. 
When I saw this, I told the boys that as I 
could not fight I was going out of the danger 
zone. They thought the risk of making the 
run in full view would be greater than to 
remain in the line; but I did not like the 
idea of lying there helpless in a veritable 
slaughter pen, so I took the chance, and evi- 
dently outran the bullets, as I got back 
through that awful open field without being 
hit. Just as I thought I was out of danger, 
I heard a shell coming, as it seemed, on a 
bee line for me. To dodge it I flattened my- 
self on the ground ; and as I looked up, I saw 
that the shell was fully a hundred feet above 
the ground. It exploded about a half mile 
from where I lay. I think that was the last 
shot from the fort, as it was surrendered in 
a few minutes. I chanced to meet Col. D. C. 
Kelly, our commander, and he gave me a 
drink of water and bandaged my wound 
with a napkin. 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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I then went to the field hospital, where the 
surgeon dressed my wound and gave me 
something to quiet my nerves. When night 
came, I slept; and in the morning that fol- 
lowed I learned that a number of my com- 
rades had gone away on the long and silent 
march beyond the gates of eternity. 

After being wounded, I was sent south 
with other disabled soldiers. We had also 
about 5,000 prisoners captured at Athens 
and Sulphur Trestle. I rode my own horse 
to Cherokee, Ala., where the wounded were 
separated from, the prisoners and guards. 

At Cherokee we were given a temporary 
train of cars, in which the wounded were 
transported to Okolona, Miss. 

On this trip, by the merest chance, I met 
a former slave of my father acting as por- 
ter on our train. He was a practical barber 
and a general handy man. His interest in 
me was intensified when he saw my condi- 
tion, and he took the tenderest care of me 
until I was able to leave. 

After the war was over and this former 
slave and I were both citizens of Corinth 
again, with earnings of my own I bought 

171 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



him a good barber's outfit and set him up in 
business. 

It is a regrettable fact that the world, 
with its garbled histories and its false le- 
gends of violence, will never understand the 
true relation between the master and the 
slave of the old South. 

That there were many individual cases of 
brutality, there can be no doubt, and that 
slavery as an institution of human govern- 
ment is wrong, no right-thinking man can 
deny; but in all the records of mankind 
there is nothing that parallels the conditions 
and practices which governed that slavery, 
now forever banished from the industries 
of our beloved country and expunged from 
its Constitution. 

The gentleness and sympathy of the mas- 
ters of Dixie and the faithfulness and loy- 
alty of the black slaves should be jealously 
written into an impartial history of that 
South that was, but is no more. They are 
the incontrovertible evidences of the great- 
ness of our people who inherited the dark 
burden of human bondage from another age 
and who were innocent heirs to the sunny 

172 



Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 



lands of cotton and cane, on which alone, of 
all our wide country, this shackled, tropical 
race could labor with profit to their owners. 

During those awful years when every 
Southern home was the probable stage of a 
tragedy it was not uncommon to see only the 
mistress of a plantation left with her chil- 
dren in the care of her slaves, who stood by 
her and respected and protected her through 
every danger. 

After the army left Sulphur Trestle, Gen- 
eral Forrest gave his attention to the de- 
struction of forts and blockhouses up and 
down the Memphis and Charleston and the 
Louisville and Nashville Railroads. While 
thus engaged, we threatened Pulaski, Tenn., 
sufficiently to hold a large Union force there 
behind breastworks, so that they did not at- 
tempt to interfere with our raids. 

To hold the Union garrison at Huntsville, 
Ala., on the Memphis and Charleston, with- 
in its works, we threatened it with the divi- 
sion of General Buford. 

The one unfortunate feature of our con- 
tinued successes was that we could not save 
and put to use the vast amount of stores cap- 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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tured on these raids, in view of the sore need 
of them among all the armies of the Confed- 
eracy. 

Our mission was to hit as the lightning 
strikes — to wreck and terrify and then dis- 
appear. 

Our enemy had no cavalry force in this 
theater of the war that could cope with us, 
and his slow-moving infantry and artillery 
found us a moving target, too swift and rest- 
less for their sluggish aim. 



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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

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CHAPTER XXIV 



FOURTH INVASION OF WEST TENNESSEE 




OON after the close of the Middle Ten- 
-, see raids we began our fourth inva- 
sion of West Tennessee, which sec- 
tion had already yielded to us so bountifully 
of the sinews of war in men and equipment. 

The Union commanders were yet unable 
to solve the mystery of Forrest's ability to 
descend unseen upon their strongholds and 
escape unhurt with all the spoils of war and 
leaving destruction in his tracks. Their 
shrewdest tacticians had failed to trap him, 
and their overwhelming armies could not 
crush him. 

About the 12th of October, 1864, our com- 
mand pushed out toward the Cumberland 
and Tennessee Rivers; and on October 29, 
near Johnsonville, Tenn., we captured the 
transport Mazeppa, loaded to the guard 
with all kinds of military supplies. The 
boat was one of the richest prizes that had 

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ever fallen into our hands. We towed her 
to the bank and unloaded everything our 
commander would permit us to take out, and 
then set fire to the boat and destroyed her, 
with the bulk of her valuable freight. 

General Forrest told us to each take a new 
outfit of clothing and blankets and enough 
food for three or four days, and not to add 
another ounce, as we would have to fight like 
the devil to get out of there. 

Among other things, I took a pair of fine 
cavalry boots. Securing the tops together, 
I swung them across my saddle and filled 
them with parched coifee, then a very rare 
luxury in the paralyzed markets of our 
stricken people. 

On October 30, 1864, we captured four 
more transports with cargoes similar to that 
of the Mazeppa ; and although the armies of 
the Confederacy and the civilians of the 
South were in the straits of poverty, we 
could do nothing but destroy these rich 
stores. 

On November 4 we appeared before John- 
son ville, Tenn., where there was a fort and 
a large depot of supplies. In an effort to out 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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off the enemy's fleet of gunboats on the river 
just above Johnsonville we captured two of 
the dreaded monsters and destroyed them. 

After getting our field guns into position 
opposite Johnsonville, we opened fire at day- 
light on the boats and the large warehouse. 
The boats hustled away as rapidly as possi- 
ble, but not until we had sunk some of them 
and crippled others. 

The fort opened on us with two big guns, 
making a mighty noise, but doing no dam- 
age. 

Our batteries soon set fire to the ware- 
house and the wharf, and destroyed all sup- 
plies within reach of our guns. 

General Sherman, commenting on this 
raid, said that it was a feat of arms that 
won his highest admiration. With a cav- 
alry force and a few field pieces of artillery, 
General Forrest had captured and sunk sev- 
eral gunboats and transports on a navigable 
river and under the protection of a fort. 

The grand result of this expedition, cover- 
ing about two weeks, was the capture and 
destruction of more than $7,000,000 worth 

177 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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of property, with a loss of only six men 
killed and perhaps a dozen wounded. 

After the lapse of nearly sixty years, in 
contemplating the career of this untaught 
Hannibal of the Southern Confederacy, we 
find that the three tallest peaks of his 
fame are the pursuit and capture of A. D. 
Streight and his raiders, the battle of Brice's 
Cross-Roads, and the Johnsonville raid. 

These three exploits will forever hold 
aloft the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest. 




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CHAPTER XXV 



THE BEGINNING OF DARK DAYS 




ETURNING from the Johnsonville 
Jg|2 ^^id, we met the army of General 
Hood. We were ordered to take the 
advance, and on November 19, 1864, our 
command was assembled at Florence, Ala., 
on the north bank of the Tennessee River, 
at the foot of the great ''Mussel Shoals.'' 
General Forrest was placed in command of 
all the cavalry, and we began the advance 
on Nashville. During this march I suffered 
some of the severest hardships of my life. 

Gen. George H. Thomas, one of the ablest 
of the Union commanders, had collected a 
large force of all arms, and was confronting 
Hood at every turn of the route. We, in ad- 
vance, came in contact with his cavalry a 
number of times, and I had many thrilling 
and narrow escapes. General Wilson, of the 
Union Army, had a well-equipped cavalry 
force of 10,000 men, and Forrest had to con- 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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tend with this force with about half its num- 
ber. 

We kept the Union column moving back- 
ward day by day until we reached Spring 
Hill, Tenn. Here we came in contact with 
Slocum's Corps ; and after a severe fight, we 
pushed them back into the town, and had 
that column of the enemy separated from 
their main force, which had retreated on 
Franklin, Tenn., a short distance beyond. 

Here a great mistake was made by some 
one other than General Forrest. It is not 
my purpose to criticize, but I shall state 
facts and let the reader judge for himself. 

At Spring Hill night came on soon after 
or about the time the battle closed, and For- 
rest moved his command around parallel to 
the pike that connected Spring Hill and 
Franklin. 

Hood's main army came up after night- 
fall. 

Thomas had pushed on to Franklin, leav- 
ing Slocum and Wilson to hold the Confed- 
erates in check at Spring Hill until night, 
when they were to withdraw under cover of 
darkness. 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



I have no personal knowledge of what 
took place on that night between our com- 
manders, but it was current talk, and has 
been published many times since the war, 
that General Forrest sent a message to Gen- 
eral Hood urging that either our command 
or an infantry division be ordered to take 
position across the Franklin and Spring Hill 
Pike to prevent the uniting of the two Union 
columns. That this was not done was a 
blunder that laid the foundation for disaster 
to Hood^s army. 

While I do not know what passed on that 
fateful night in the high councils of our 
leaders, I do know that, as Forrest's com- 
mand lay through the long, uneasy night 
along that pike, we plainly heard the artil- 
lery and wagons of the enemy's army 
marching out of Spring Hill and away from 
sure defeat and capture, which would have 
been their fate had they kept their position 
until daylight of another day. 

The next day General Hood arrayed his 
army in battle order under the expectancy 
that the enemy would make a stand at 
Franklin. 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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After the lucky escape from Spring Hill, 
our foe utilized to the fullest possible extent 
every natural advantage in preparing for a 
defense at Franklin. Earthworks were 
hurriedly thrown up, and every house and 
fence was intelligently utilized to retard the 
momentum of an open attack. 

The soldier who undertakes to tell what 
he actually sees of a battle as extensive and 
terrible and bloody as was the battle of 
Franklin has but little to tell, and so I shall 
attempt no description; but that dreadful 
conflict of November 30, 1864, is known to 
every student of history as one of the great 
disasters of the Confederacy. There were 
a greater number of Confederate officers 
killed at Franklin than at Shiloh, Chicka- 
mauga, or Gettysburg, to say nothing of the 
bloody and one-sided slaughter of our men. 

I never shall forget the gloom that settled 
over the ranks of our beaten troops. The 
blunder at Spring Hill seemed to smite the 
hearts of our men as they contemplated its 
deadly cost; and yet that great mass of men, 
with embittered souls, prepared to press on- 
ward. 

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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 



The night following the battle the Union 
Army withdrew to Nashville and entrenched 
for the expected assault. 

Though vastly outnumbered, Hood moved 
at once and invested the city of Nashville. 

From the 2d to the 15th of December we 
held the enemy within his fortifications. 
On the 15th he moved out and tried in vain 
to break our line. On the 16th he renewed 
the sortie with increased masses of troops, 
and our left wing collapsed and forced Hood 
to retreat. And what a retreat! No one 
who participated in it can ever forget the 
suffering and hopeless anguish of that 
weary, running march. 

The cause for which this grand army had 
so nobly fought, tottering toward its every 
battle field, was now living only by the 
gameness of its defenders. 

Defeated and shattered amid the desola- 
tion of winter, hungry, half-naked, and foot- 
sore, this suffering host turned sadly from 
the capital city of one of its own loyal States, 
and followed its haggard gaze toward the 
deeper South, with the benumbed feeling 
that somewhere, somehow it would make 

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Recollections of Thomas D, Duncan 

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another stand, if only to give the last im- 
pulse of its fast-ebbing energies to the spirit 
of its dying cause and perish with its hopes. 

General Forrest was ordered to cover the 
retreat, and the brigade of General Wal- 
thairs Mississippians was assigned as his 
infantry support. 

Knowing our sad plight, flushed with vic- 
tory, and eager for the finish, the Union 
Army started in pursuit with 10,000 well- 
mounted and well-equipped cavalry under 
General Wilson. 

Forrest had about 5,000 cavalry, and 
Walthall's men numbered about 2,800 ; but 
as they were almost destitute of shoes and 
clothing of every kind, we had to carry 
many of the men in the wagon train, using 
them only when we were forced to stop and 
fight. 

Hood had planned to get to the Tennessee 
River, where we had a pontoon bridge, at 
Mussel Shoals. 

With what consummate genius General 
Forrest kept the ravenous foe from the heels 
of that almost helpless host as it marched 
and stumbled and fell forward toward its 

184 



Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



goal of temporary safety, is a matter of rec- 
ord and need not be here set forth. 

After many days of rear-guard fighting, 
in which the skill and daring of General 
Forrest parried and blocked and retarded 
the swiftness of our pursuers, we succeeded 
in holding the enemy in check until the gray 
remnant of Hood's once magnificent army 
crossed the Tennessee at Bainbridge, Ala. 
The pontoon bridge was quickly destroyed, 
and the Union Army, foiled in further pur- 
suit, turned down the river to Eastport, to 
which place boats brought supplies and 
troops. 

Here General Wilson prepared to march 
against Selma, Ala., then the ''heart of the 
Confederacy. '^ 




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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

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CHAPTER XXVI 



THE LAST FLICKERING OF THE 
GREAT FLAME 



ANUARY, 1865, found General For- 
rest bending every energy to the 
maintenance and recruiting of his 
force for whatever further defense might 
have to be made, and the Union commander 
at Eastport making careful and extensive 
preparation for an extended and determined 
campaign as soon as the weather conditions 
should be favorable. 

It was with great difficulty that we man- 
aged to feed ourselves and our horses 
through those trying months of bleak win- 
ter. 

In the ranks, where men had never 
shirked a duty or a danger, the sad story of 
our lost cause was already forewritten in 
our suffering hearts; and the hopelessness 
of our situation became so fixed in the sol- 
diers' minds that desertions became fre- 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



quent; and in order to check this and en- 
force discipline, our commander resorted to 
stern measures, to the extent that some of 
the deserters were executed and their bodies 
conspicuously displayed as a warning. 

While crossing the bridge at Tuscaloosa, 
Ala., I witnessed one of these tragic and 
morbid spectacles, which made a lasting im- 
pression upon my youthful mind and embit- 
tered my heart against all wars. 

Late in March the Union Army began to 
move southward from Eastport, and Gen- 
eral Forrest's first interest was to ascertain 
the enemy's plans as far as possible. 

I was with a scouting troop when we luck- 
ily intercepted and captured a Union cou- 
rier carrying the plan of the Union com- 
mander's line of march. This message was 
sent to each of the division commanders. 

They were ordered to move into South 
Alabama in three columns, marching par- 
allel to each other, twenty miles apart, and 
to consolidate at a point north of Selma, Ala. 

We speedily sent this information to Gen- 
eral Forrest, then in the vicinity of Tusca- 
loosa, Ala. 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 

III! 



General Wilson had 10,000 or 12,000 vet- 
eran troops of all arms, while Forrest had 
about 5,000, and only half of that number 
were of his veterans ; but we had the advan- 
tage of being on our native heath, and our 
leader had never been beaten in a single case 
when he was in supreme command of all dis- 
positions and details of the battle. 

With their plans in hand, he sent General 
Chalmers to meet the extreme eastern divi- 
sion and General Jackson to take the middle 
division, while he would personally direct 
the movement against the western column, 
nearest Tuscaloosa, in the hope of defeating 
it and then falling upon the rear of the main 
column. 

But this was not to be. When Forrest 
was ready for the move, he sent a courier to 
the Selma garrison and to Roddy's cavalry, 
with full information of the whole plan ; but 
the enemy captured the courier, and Gen- 
eral Wilson changed his plan, and Forrest 
never knew why until after the war. 

While our forces, ignorant of the change 
of plan, were separately waiting for the 
three columns, we ran into Wilson's cavalry, 

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Recollections of Thomas D. Duncan 



8,000 strong, at Bogless Creek, a few miles 
north of Selma, and we had only about 200 
men, mainly the escort. 

Forrest, thinking that we had run into a 
small force, threw us hurriedly into line and 
charged the advance, and the enemy thought 
they had struck the main Confederate col- 
umn. We soon got into a mix-up, and they 
began to overlap us in every direction. The 
bulk of our little band was fighting and fall- 
ing back in an effort to clear a passage, 
when we discovered that the enemy was 
making a move to cut General Forrest off 
from his troops. About ten of us went to his 
assistance. They had him surrounded, and 
he was fighting like a lion at bay. He killed 
several men — no one ever knew how many ; 
and when he came out of the circle, he 
jumped his horse straight through a cordon 
of mounted men and escaped without a 
mark on his person. 

We fled the field and fell back to Selma, 
Ala. 

Here the Confederacy had been operating 
a small manufacturing plant for making 
arms, and the commander had only enough 

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men to make a thin picket line for the pro- 
tection of the plant. 

When Forrest arrived, he gathered every 
available man and put them in the trenches 
for the best possible defense. 

Forrest's plan having failed, he was in 
ignorance as to where his troops were, and 
this gave the enemy a very dangerous ad- 
vantage. 

Forrest felt that if the enemy had slipped 
by his commanders they would follow him 
up and strike him in the rear when the at- 
tack on Selma should begin. 

At any rate, it was certain that when the 
Union Army should reach Selma there 
would be a fight of some kind, regardless of 
odds. 

The escort took position in the trenches on 
the extreme left, the weakest point, and 
Roddy's troops were placed on our right. 
Then the home guards and mixed multitude 
were strung out in a thin line along the re- 
mainder of the works, and instructed to 
hold the trenches at all hazards and never 
leave until they should receive orders to re- 
tire. 

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Of course Forrest told us that if we could 
hold the enemy in check for a while, our 
missing troops would strike him in the rear 
soon, and that we could capture or destroy 
the cavalry force: but, unfortunately, For- 
rest was not on the outside with his troops, 
and the capture of our messenger had so 
shifted the situation that the commanders 
of Forrest's two columns lost touch, and 
never knew anything about the battle until 
it was all over. 

On the first approach to our line the ene- 
emy seemed to have about 2,000 men, and 
we held them in check and pushed them back 
out of range ; but on the second charge they 
came like the locusts of Pharaoh, and that 
thin line of gray did not tarry for the im- 
pact, but went, self -ordered. 

Forrest held the escort company until the 
enemy had swarmed all around us and cut 
us off from the city by way of the bridge. 
He then mounted his horse and told us to 
follow him — that he was going out. It 
looked like a desperate undertaking, but we 
had dared Fate so many times and ''gotten 

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by'' that we believed that our great captain 
would carry us out again. 

Our company was formed into a flying 
wedge, and began the drive toward the 
southwest, so as to strike the river at its 
narrowest point. 

We fought like demons, as the majority of 
us in that company had never surrendered, 
and we did not now intend to do so. 

I had many narrow escapes. My hat was 
either shot off or carried away by a saber 
stroke, but I got through without a scratch. 
When we cleared the cordon that had sur- 
rounded us, we plunged our horses into the 
river and escaped by swimming to the oppo- 
site shore. 

Here Forrest gathered the few of us that 
were left, and we made our way out in the 
direction of Gainesville, Ala. We had lost 
a number of the escort in the fight — some 
were killed, some were drowned in the 
river, and some were wounded and surren- 
dered. Among the captured were my two 
brothers and a young man who afterwards 
became my brother-in-law, R. P. Elgin. 

After we were safely on the. way to 

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Gainesville, I told General Forrest that it 
seemed to me that the war was over, and 
that I was going to my father's house. He 
and family were then ref ugeeing in the flat- 
woods of Pontotoc County. With but few 
words, the General admitted the gravity of 
the situation, and told me to go on to my fa- 
ther. 

I first stopped at Okolona, Miss., where I 
was treated with great deference and kind- 
ness by the same slave boy who had nursed 
me when I was wounded. 

From Okolona I went to my father and 
remained until June, 1865. 

From Pontotoc County I rode back to 
Corinth, secured employment, sold my horse 
for $150 in greenbacks, and started my first 
savings account, from which I afterwards 
started a business of my own. 

On my return to Corinth, I had found the 
town garrisoned by a troop of negro soldiers. 

The whole prospect was a picture of deso- 
lation, as this town and vicinity had been 
under the very heel of war for four long, 
weary years; but nature had not forsaken 
the landscape entirely, for it was carpeted 

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with grass and clover and wild flowers — a 
beautiful winding sheet for the dead hopes 
and prospects of the buoyant boys who had 
marched away from this place under the 
Southern battle flag. 

There were practically no domestic ani- 
mals to trespass on the fields and meadows ; 
but while the husbandman had forsaken his 
gardens and vineyards to kill his own kind, 
the unmolested birds and wild animals na- 
tive to this clime had restored God's origi- 
nal paradise and were living in happy 
groups and families upon the lands which 
ungrateful man had deserted. 

Three years after my return from the 
war I was married to Miss Juliette Elgin, 
of Huntsville, Ala., a beautiful and petite 
young lady of 118 pounds. She is with me 
yet; and whatever changes time may have 
wrought upon her appearance to other eyes, 
with the eyes of memory I behold her still, 
and the mental and spiritual graces of her 
youth have only ripened with the years. 

To this union were born two daughters, 
Luella and Lucille, to increase our responsi- 
bilities and brighten our home. To train 

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and educate them became the prime purpose 
of our lives, and in their welfare and hap- 
piness we submerged our personal ambi- 
tions. 

Now that they have homes and family re- 
sponsibilities of their own, our fireside has 
lost them ; but in their happiness we find our 
recompense, and this humble record of sa- 
cred memories is affectionately dedicated to 
their sons. 

In drawing to a close this record of mem- 
ories, I trust that I may be pardoned for a 
brief indulgence of recollections which can- 
not be of interest to any save my own peo- 
ple and, perchance, my comrades of the six- 
ties. 

I was born at Jacinto, in the pine-embow- 
ered hills of Tishomxingo County, Miss., and 
a good portion of my war service was hap- 
pily given to guarding that sacred land 
which had nourished my joyous childhood. 

With the tear-dimmed vision of retro- 
spection, I ever behold that happy spot — its 
orchards, its meadows, its wild flowers and 
sparkling waters. Especially do I stand 
again with expectant thirst at the cold spout 

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spring that gushed from the hill — eternal 
wonder of nature that sings on to the cen- 
turies to mock the fleeting vanity of our 
short lives. The trees and vines that shad- 
owed my rest or my play or refreshed me 
with their luscious fruits can never fade. 
The fragrance of the wild grape's high- 
hanging bloom comes to me across the van- 
ished years, and, with it, the flavor of the 
muscadine wrapped within its leathery 
skin. And as I dwell upon these fragments 
of youth's vanished paradise, I hear again 
the sad, sweet song of Tishomingo's pines — 
the same that sang to the Chickasaw Indians 
before the white man came. 

That county, which was the world of my 
young and impressionable life, seemed to me 
to hold all that was necessary to human hap- 
piness. Its territory was equal to the State 
of Rhode Island, and three rivers were born 
within its borders — the Tombigbee, the 
Hatchie, and the Tuscumbia. Even to my 
unsophisticated mind there was something 
in the grandeur and the freedom of the 
place that spoke of things beyond the senses 
of the body. Like all the Indian countries, 

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mil 



it had its mysterious landmarks and its sad 
and beautiful legends of the wars and loves 
and tragedies of the wild, savage, brave peo- 
ple whose crude road to God was through 
the ^^happy hunting ground.'^ 

My boyish imagination deeply colored 
with the glory and the romance of those 
vague traditions, I have stood, in the shadow 
of moonlit nights, and watched the dark 
heads of the pines nodding to the sky, and 
thought that, perchance, their whispered 
song was the echoed sigh of the vanquished 
red man brooding, in spirit, above the land 
he had so loved. 

Another scene that flutters through my 
memory like a fantastic dream is the dark- 
ening forest of the evening twilight hour, 
alive with uncounted thousands of wild pig- 
eons, turning the silent woods into a Babel 
of musical chatter as they gathered to rest 
in their sylvan lodge. 

These all have flown away on the wings 
of time, as utterly as the great herds of the 
buffalo have vanished from the plains of the 
West, and, so far as I know, not a single bird 
of this species is left in our country. 

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For some strange reason the God of na- 
ture has permitted spoiled man to waste the 
myriad wonders of the virgin woods, until 
only the rivers, the springs, and the eternal 
sky are left of the glory that was. 

In melancholy recollection of all the peo- 
ple and all the things beloved that are gone 
from that small, though great, green coun- 
try of my early life, I salute thee, Tisho- 
mingo of sacred memories ! 

This reverie may be meangingless to the 
majority of my readers; but if this, my 
heart's humble tribute to the remembered 
beauty of my native land shall meet the eye 
of a single companion of those blissful days 
and enchanting scenes, he will understand 
and the others will forgive. 






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CHAPTER XXVII 



RECONSTRUCTION 




UCH has been said and written of 
that unhappy period immediately 
following the Civil War — unhappy 
for both the North and the South, because 
its memories delayed the reunion of our 
sections through many years. The humili- 
ation and griefs of that frightful era left 
far deeper scars than did all the sabers and 
swords and bullets from Bull Run to Appo- 
mattox. The flame of war had burned out 
the lives of thousands of our brave sons and 
consumed our homes and wasted our lands, 
but the embers of reconstruction seared their 
mark upon the very souls of our people. 

We who know do not charge that horror 
to the great nation to which we are as loyal 
and true as any beneath the flag to-day, but 
to individuals who abused authority and 
misrepresented the spirit of the North to- 
ward the South. 

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I, for one, thank God that our people 
themselves settled the problem of recon- 
struction by the application of a righteous 
courage to a desperate situation, but there 
was one influence in that settlement which 
was never generally appreciated. Across 
the closed chasm, above the graves of all the 
soldier dead, the great men of the North 
and the great men of the South looked at 
each other in silence and understood when 
the oppressors were driven from the South. 

As soon as the insidious tongues of a few 
intermeddling, ignorant, vicious men and 
women, seeking to be the ministering angels 
of the former slaves, were hushed by the 
stern policy of the representative Southern 
people, the happy and natural relations of 
the two races were restored; and to-day, 
after nearly sixty years of freedom, the 
black man of the South knows that the 
Southern white man is his truest friend, be- 
cause he alone understands him and sympa- 
thizes with his natural and legitimate needs. 

As one who in a very humble way helped 
to make that sad history, as the representa- 
tive of a family who owned slaves, I desire 

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to here record my opinion that in the try- 
ing period following the war it was the 
Christian fortitude of our people that saved 
the day for us. Out of the ashes of material 
wealth, out of anguish and humiliation, we 
came with honor; and the unbroken spirit 
of the old South, serene amid its earthly 
poverty, is the unquestioned and priceless 
heritage of our sons. 

Whenever and wherever I meet a soldier 
of the sixties, no matter whether he wore 
the blue or the gray, I think of his life as the 
figure and symbol of a sad, eventful day. 
His youth represents the morning, and it 
was filled with golden dreams. Achieve- 
ment and success smiled before him, and his 
heart leaped with love, just as young hearts 
leap to-day. But, before he could realize 
his dreams, a great storm — that awful 
war — came and swept away his fairest 
prospects. The noontide of his life found 
him busy with the wreckage of the morn- 
ing, and then it was that there rose in his 
soul a far greater courage than that which 
had sustained him on the bloodiest battle 
field — the courage to meet and conquer ad- 

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versity, the divine grace to cast away his 
bitterness and to love his former foes. 

My comrades, out of the ruined morning 
and the rebuilding toil of the noontide we 
have come at last to the evening and the 
twilight. Time has placed upon our heads 
his crown of silver and of snow. For us the 
long 'day of life is near spent, and the world 
can never chide us if, in the spirit of frater- 
nity and forgiveness, we find ourselves 
dreaming backward toward the blood-bil- 
lowed years of Shiloh and Chickamauga and 
all our other fields of mutual and glorious 
memories. 

All of us who are now living in the true 
spirit of liberty and union know that out 
of our great war of sixty years ago has come 
a greater peace than our nation could have 
ever known had we not cut away, with the 
sword, the great mistake of the fathers of 
our country. 

Let us pray that our sacrifices, now far 
back in the years, may be truly recorded, to 
be the living evidences of American cour- 
age — that tried and true courage which is 
our greatest asset, an asset of national 

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wealth outweighing the value even of our 
vast material wealth. 

Embodied in our sons and grandsons, only 
a little while ago, the whole world glimpsed 
that same spirit of courage and patriotism 
on the battle fields of Europe, when the 
^'Blue and the Gray'^ turned to ^^Olive Drab'' 
and our boys, millions strong, crossed the 
ocean to defend the ideals of our country — 
ideals of national life which are rapidly be- 
coming the ideals of all truly civilized peo- 
ples of the earth. 

I rejoice that I have lived to see the great- 
ness of America dawn upon the world. I 
rejoice that when the hour struck for the 
flag of universal liberty to ^^go over the top,'' 
it was carried there by the substance of our 
fields, by the power that came from our 
mountains of coal and iron, by the whirring 
wings of our liberty motors, and by the un- 
beaten and unbeatable soldiers of the United 
States. 

For one hundred and forty-seven years 
the individuality of the American soldier 
has defied the analysis of military critics 

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and upset the theories of every nation that 
has met him on the battle field. 

Since his first far-off shot of Lexington, 
the makers of war maps have been unable 
to chart his power from his visible numbers, 
for in his unconquerable spirit there is the 
might of unseen legions and the unmeasured 
force of just and democratic purpose, as an 
armed host, is bivouacked in his soul. 

You may follow his history from his ad- 
vent into the world of political contention, 
through his almost unbelievable and un- 
broken line of successes, and you will find 
him, always and everywhere, the one un- 
beatable force which cannot be weighed in 
the scales that determine the military val- 
ues of all other peoples. If other evidences 
were lacking to establish these facts, cer- 
tain incidents of the World War alone would 
prove them. In no case did he fail to meet 
the test of fire ; and the anxious world stood 
aghast when the German staff reduced the 
question of fighting ability to an absolute 
test in the hope of proving the weakness of 
our ''raw recruits'' when pitted against sol- 
diers not only trained, but bred and born, 

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in the iron atmosphere of the ^^Great Em- 
pire/' The Germans, confident of their su- 
periority, man for man, felt that such a test 
would weaken the morale of the American 
soldier and boost the waning German hope 
at Berlin. 

On April 20, 1918, at Seicheprey, in the 
Toul Sector, a picked German column, the 
product of a century of militarism, as- 
saulted an American force of approximately 
equal numbers. 

Not only was it a clash of men ; it was the 
deadly embrace of principles — the death 
grapple of human systems. 

The world knows the result. The indi- 
viduality of the American soldier was as- 
serted before the astonished eyes of all na- 
tions, and the Stars and Stripes floated tri- 
umphantly over that field of death. 

Unafraid of all the military camps of the 
earth, this strange civil soldier, while fos- 
tering and guarding the greatest of all re- 
publics, has eschewed the damning princi- 
ples of militarism, ever preferring to keep 
his sword sheathed in the peaceful scabbard 

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of industry, drawing it only when Liberty 
is endangered. 

Of that deadly war, which, directly or in- 
directly, involved every square inch of the 
earth's surface and the fate of every human 
being, living and yet to live, Hendrick Van 
Loon has beautifully said : 

"The human race was given its first chance to become 
truly civilized when it took courage to question all things, 
and made 'knowledge and understanding' the foundation 
upon which to create a more reasonable and sensible soci- 
ety of human beings. The great war was the 'growing 
pain' of this new world." 



■"-X 






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CHAPTER XXVIII 



AMERICANISM TRIUMPHANT 




^HAT Americanism which to-day is a 
dominant world force is not alone of 
North or South or East or West. 
Out of the blended greatness of all the sec- 
tions of the United States came the hope of 
peace and universal democracy in that dark 
hour when the allied armies of Europe were 
backing doggedly toward the tottering gates 
of Paris. That hope was born of the re- 
united blood of the gray and the blue ar- 
mies. 

As it was Americanism that tipped the 
doubtful scale of victory on the field of bat- 
tle, so it was Americanism that inspired the 
war-sick world to seek the great League. 

And now that all eyes are turned toward 
Geneva as the chosen capital of the earth, 
the fascinating history of that far corner 
of Switzerland will be lifted by a thousand 
pens from the dust of neglect. Poured into 

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the stream of current literature, it will add 
mellowness and flavor, as if a flagon of old 
wine were resurrected from some long- 
deserted cellar and poured into the spirit- 
less punch bowl of to-day. 

This new seat of world deliberation has 
ever been a home of thought — a place of 
dreams. 

From the brain of a dreamer who 
dreamed there more than a hundred years 
ago there issued a ghost — the most mon- 
strous and terrifying that ever looked from 
the pages of fantastic literature — for a cen- 
tury considered only a gloomy fancy of a 
wonderful imagination, but now revealed 
in the light of the world revolution as a hid- 
eous prophecy of the terror and agony of the 
great war. Perchance the prophecy was an 
accident. It may be that there was nothing 
miraculous — no inspired vision back of the 
dream; and still it may be that some yet 
undiscovered force of mind and soul mir- 
rored in the brain of that bright dreamer 
the troubled future of the world and caused 
its expression in the mental creation of a 
monster. 

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In reviewing this ghost of accidental or 
miraculous prophecy, as the case may be, it 
is well to remember that this country of 
landmarks and memories has ever held a 
charm for the restless spirits of genius. 
The hill of Geneva is cathedral-crowned. 
Its unique and historic river, born of snow 
and ice and reborn of a crystal lake, divides 
the city like a stream of blue and trembling 
light, and the lands that sustain its country- 
side are a succession of orchards, gardens, 
and vineyards. 

The beautiful Lake of Geneva, touching 
the city with its western extremity, stretches 
eastward for more than forty miles. Great 
spirits of many centuries have gathered 
about this place of dreams to sing their 
songs to all the future or work out their 
messages to mankind — poets, philosophers, 
painters, sculptors, theologians, astrono- 
mers, and scientists. 

There Calvin lived and taught and died. 
There Rousseau was born to be the siren of 
free thought, and from that base of dreams 
went forth to lead his life of wonderful, dis- 
solute, and brilliant vagabondage. 

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And so the list of the great whose lives 
have touched this charmed and charming 
place could be extended on and on; but let 
us leave this to the research of the inter- 
ested, while we pass to the immortals who 
are linked with our strange story. 

In the eventful summer of 1816, while all 
Europe was being adjusted to the new sen- 
sation of living without fear of the great 
Napoleon, then just settled in his cage at 
St. Helena; when Germany, at last free 
from his dominating genius, was already 
beginning to steel the national heart for a 
career of supermilitarism, there came to the 
lonesome shore of this famous lake Lord 
Byron, the poet Shelley, and Mary Godwin 
(afterwards Mary Shelley). 

Mutually possessed with the spirit of 
mysticism which seemed ever to brood over 
the moss-grown city, the beautiful lake and 
its environs, these impressionable children 
of nature entered into a playful contest to 
determine who could write the most har- 
rowing story dealing with the supernatural. 
At least, it is known that Lord Byron, Mary 
Godwin, and Byron's physician entered the 

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contest. So supremely terrifying was the 
story of Mary Godwin that Byron never fin- 
ished his story, and the story of the physi- 
cian is unknown to the world of literature. 
Her story tells of the secret ambition and 
dreadful realization of a German student 
of science in the University of Ingolstadt. 
Pushing his clandestine research into the 
realm of the unknown until he discovered 
the secret of human life, ambition kindled 
in his soul to mimic the master work of God. 
He created a soulless body of a man, and, by 
the application of his discovered chemical, 
infused into the cold, dead form the vital 
spark. It did not step from his touch as 
Adam stepped from the Divine Hand — in 
beauty and in grace — but came groveling 
into consciousness, a distorted monster. 
The student fled from his work; but in the 
silent hours of the night that followed, his 
horrid creature stood, with bloodshot eyes, 
above his bed, and, with hideous face and 
wildly waving arms, cursed the daring in- 
telligence which had called it from the night 
of nothingness into an unnatural and mis- 
erable existence. Again the student fled, 

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and continued to flee from the awful work 
of his hands ; but ever the monster followed, 
penetrating the barriers of his most secret 
lodgings, begging death at the hands of its 
creator, or silently pressing against the 
pane of his window a face of suffering and 
rage. It murdered his friends and the mem- 
bers of his family. It pursued him through 
life, and at last stood and shrieked above his 
coffin — a terrible witness to the folly of his 
wisdom. Its work of vengeance ended, it 
stepped into a self -kindled fire and perished. 
Could it not have been that this monster 
was more than a fantastic dream of Mary 
Godwin's brain? Did not this imaginary 
German student, misusing the discoveries 
of science to ape the power of God, fore- 
shadow the mighty German nation harness- 
ing every art and discovery of civilization 
for the creation of a monster a thousand 
times more terrible than that of the strange 
story — the monster of Militarism? Have 
we not seen this German-created monster, 
with body of steel and breath of fire, go 
forth to terrorize the world? Failing in its 
unnatural purpose, have we not seen it, like 

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the awful ghost, turn upon its creator and 
hound a dynasty to its death? And is not 
this monster, like the other, now perishing 
in its self-builded fires? 

Beautiful Mary Shelley! You cannot 
arise from your long sleep to answer our 
anxious question and tell us whether your 
uncommon story was the picture of a dream 
or the record of a vision ! 

Ring on, the soft bells of your golden past, 
Geneva, and keep the sweet cadence of 
their ancient song to mellow the newness of 
your greater life to come ! The heart of the 
world will beat within your gates ; and may 
truth and liberty, clear and changeless as 
the waters of your Rhone, flow from the de- 
liberations of your gathered wisdom. 




213 



'u 



'■^?:, 



\ / 



